What will Uganda be like in 2011?

Forecasting future events and trends is not difficult if one knows the basics. Human nature, with all its unchanging traits, is the constant in human affairs. Timothy Kalyegira predicts what this year has in store for Ugandans.

We can be fore for example that most Ugandans will complain about being short of money through most of January 2011 as a result of overspending during the Christmas 2010 holidays and festive season.
Therefore, based on long-established patterns of behaviour, history, social norms, geopolitical forces, religion and economics, the following is a forecast that can reasonably be expected to unfold in 2011.

The 2011 general election
The biggest news story in Uganda in 2011 will, of course, be the general election. President Museveni has made it clear from 1996 that as a rule, he has no interest in handing power to the opposition.

If FDC/IPC candidate Dr Kizza Besigye were to win the February 18 general election, do we see Museveni and First Lady Janet Museveni warmly shaking hands with the new President Kizza Besigye and First Lady Winnie Byanyima at the front door of State House Entebbe?

However, the main opposition parties have also made it clear that (in Besigye’s case) they will not go to court in the event of a rigged election or (in the case of the FDC/IPC and the Democratic Party) they will tally their own results. Put another way, Uganda in 2011 is headed for an aftermath similar to that which followed the 1980 election.

Whoever wins the February election (especially if it is the NRM), there will be plenty of drama on the national political landscape brought about by the emergence of the private (or independent) candidates in the 2010 election primaries and campaign.

Bitter outcry
Very likely, the election will be followed by a loud and bitter outcry in the races for Parliament. There was in 2010 anger among NRM candidates who insisted that they had been rigged out of victory in the primaries and chose to contest in 2011 as independents.

If they are defeated at the polls, they will only argue, bitterly, that the rigging has continued. If these independents win, it will be the turn of the NRM party flag bearers to cry out in anger and refuse to concede defeat.
Either way, an ugly situation awaits the NRM after February 2011 that could well mark the start of the effective end of the party as it has been for 25 years. Should Museveni remain President after February, the number one priority and preoccupation for the next five years will be to make sure that the NRM does not fall apart around him. He will have to calm his restive party.
He will spend endless hours at State House and at his Rwakitura country home brokering disputes between feuding NRM politicians. He will have to offer many jobs as ambassadors to foreign diplomatic missions that do not exist or places on boards of directors that are already full.

One or two disgruntled cadres and party leaders can be offered a job or tender. What happens when the disgruntled people number in the hundreds and there are only so many jobs and so much money to go around?

To appease this garrison of the NRM disgruntled, to find them money, jobs and tenders, government hospitals and schools will go for a further five years without the basics, Kampala city will remain without street lights and potholes on the roads will become trenches and pits.

Uganda’s foreign relations
Southern Sudan will be the most anxiously watched news story from Africa in 2011. It will be watched as no other recent story by Ethiopia, Arab North Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Libya, Egypt, Chad, Eritrea and by the United States, Britain, Russia, and China.
Every country that shares an international border with the soon-to-be-independent Republic of South Sudan will be scrutinised for its stability and how it can play a role in stabilising the situation should the January 9, 2011 referendum result into civil war.

As such, Uganda will be closely watched. The Ugandan head of state, Yoweri Museveni, will be watched and the main opposition leaders as well, for their positions and leverage with and in South Sudan.

Because Uganda has troops in that other African trouble spot Somalia, it will have a heightened strategic value to the Western powers and this will determine whom they back or allow as president in 2011.

All through 2011, the US diplomatic cables published by the WikiLeaks website will continue to roll out. There is much that is still unknown about what is said about President Museveni and his government officials.
However, the little we glimpsed into in 2010 indicated that there will be much for Museveni to fear from Libyan strongman Col. Muammar Gaddafi even if Museveni remains in power after the February election.

Other than that, Uganda whether under Museveni after February or led by an opposition politician, will remain at the behest of the West, taking directives, responding to western requests, entering into bi-lateral agreements that heavily favour the West but that at least strengthen the president and give him the superficial aura of wielding real decision-making power.

The Ugandan economy
The world financial then world economic crisis that started with the collapse in September 2008 of the giant American investment bank Lehman Brothers continued into 2010 and Europe is bracing itself for 2011 as the year of economic austerity and budget cuts.

The US economy, the world’s largest, is not expected to recover from net recession until about 2013 at the earliest, that is if at all.
Since Uganda is heavily dependent for budgetary support, aid projects, remittances from Ugandans largely based in the economically-stricken West, and direct foreign investment on the West, it can be assumed that 2011 will see a slow drying up of money from the West into Uganda.

This trend was already underway in 2010 with the continuing depreciation of the Ugandan currency, the shilling, against the US dollar. The Uganda Revenue Authority reported a short fall in revenue collections in 2010.
With the poverty so widespread in Uganda and competition, not much thought is required in predicting that the five telecom companies will take their price war into 2011, except this year it could extend into Internet tariffs.

By early 2011, Warid Telecom will have completed an upgrade from its current and slow 2G/EDGE/GPRS Internet to the high speed 3G+/HSDPA Internet currently offered by Orange Telecom and MTN. It could then embark on a drastic tariff cut as it did in 2009 with its “One shilling per second” and later “PakaLast” campaign.

In overall terms, the only area in recent years that the majority of Ugandans can say they have had it good has been with the falling cost of mobile phone sets and calling rates. The rest of the year will remain as bleak economically as it has been in recent years.
This year 2011 will see the culmination of China’s emergence as the new America of the world.

Chinese influence
China’s rise and complete dominance of the African, Latin American, Asian and Middle Eastern markets means that the days of Ugandan manufacturers’ modest efforts at developing home-grown industry are numbered.
From toys, shoes, clothes, suitcases, travelling bags, plastic containers, flasks, and most other items basic to the average house, “Made in China” is the label Uganda will see much more of.
The small Ugandan businesses will consequently be reduced to importer of and traders in Chinese merchandise. It is already happening and more of this can be expected.