Is it time to write Mao’s political obituary?

For future reference. In one or two months’ time, DP president Norbert Mao, hopes to release his prison diaries, which he has written under the working title Letters From Nakasongola. It embodies his “stories and reflections” when he was incarcerated in the Nakasongola Prison during the Walk-to-Work protests. Then in a year’s time, Mr Mao hopes to publish his life’s story under the title Tomorrow Will Come, writes Eriasa Mukiibi Sserunjogi.

But if anyone thought of having Mr Mao as a puppet DP president, that person did not know him enough. According to Mr Awori, Mr Mao is difficult to change from what he believes in.

So what did Mr Mao do when he was asked not to attend Ms Nambooze’s party? He switched off his phone and drove to Ms Nambooze’s home in Mukono.

Mr Awori first saw Mr Mao closely in 1996 in the 6th Parliament and he found him “ambitious, hardworking, very articulate and absolutely clear on what he wanted to achieve.”

But as they worked together on their political projects, Mr Awori discovered that Mao “occasionally made the mistake of not being accommodative of other people’s ideas,” which Mr Awori suspects could be the cause of the current problem in DP.

Prof. Latigo takes it even further, saying Mr Mao “cannot participate in a cause unless he is leading it.” He says, for example, that Mr Mao stayed put in the DP when Prof. Latigo and MPs Reagan Okumu, Odonga Otto and Kasiano Wadri left and joined FDC. Prof. Latigo says Mr Mao might have stayed in the “depleted” DP for fear of competition for leadership positions in other parties.

Could Mao still become president?

So probably Mr Mao’s biggest challenge will be to mobilise support from other political players around his presidential bid. Prof. Latigo projects that there might be another exodus from NRM, comparable to what happened around 2004, and that those who will desert NRM could have a big say in who will eventually become president. In such a scenario, Prof. Latigo says, Mr Mao stands “very little chance” that he will be the candidate they will rally behind.

In the opposition, he has cast himself as anti-unity leader unless he is the one leading as the joint opposition flag bearer, making many supporters wonder whether he wants change or simply wants to be the change.

According to Mr Awori, Mr Mao made a mistake when he left Parliament in 2006 and became Gulu District chairperson. Mr Awori says Parliament provides one with a platform to maintain a national appeal and “keep in people’s faces,” which he deems important in politics. According to Mr Awori, it was partly due to former FDC president Kizza Besigye’s “shunning Parliament” in 2001 that his subsequent presidential bids failed. He fears Mao’s too will suffer a similar fate.

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UYD: Mao’s deal breaker?

Founded when political parties were still legally banned, the Uganda Young Democrats (UYD) was meant to breathe new life into DP.

Mr Joseph Luzige, its founding leader, says DP youth like him “wanted to move at a faster pace than the largely old DP leaders who would take about 30 minutes to climb up the stairs of a building.”

It is a paradox that 20 years later, Mr Luzige thinks that the same UYD could sink DP even deeper into its woes. “The DP leadership has to be careful how they handle UYD otherwise the party could be in trouble,” says Mr Luzige.
The DP leadership has been shaken up recently by disagreements over UYD holding a delegates conference to elect a new leadership. Addressing the press at DP headquarters on Tuesday, Mr Mao announced that 20 members of DP and UYD, including DP’s deputy publicity secretary Paul Kakande, would face disciplinary action over defying the party to hold the UYD elections.

Mr Mao, in a move that has already attracted reactions from the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), accused FDC’s former leader, Dr Kizza Besigye, of funding the UYD youth to foment disharmony in DP.