Why is the NRM holding onto power?

To the casual observer, it seems the illustrious National Resistance Movement (NRM) is now becoming famous for having successfully resisted its way into power from 1981 to 1986, against the greatest of all odds, and by 2013, famous for even more successfully resisting its exit from power in spite of all the obvious signs.

It is confounding but these are two diametrically opposed and contending positions of what is explicitly the same organisation.

God has blessed me in that in early 1981, I witnessed the second meeting of the formation of the NRM/A at the home of the late Kyobe, then at the end of 1985, I was deployed at the then NRA 1st Mobile Brigade headquarters unit. There as we made to capture power, Affande Salim Saleh ordered me to keep the two slender files containing the bush war NRA High Command documents.

So besides this history, I am observing, as if in a paid performing arts auditorium, the drama of an orchestrated NRM permanent hold on to power.

Today, it is easy for everybody to see the coercive and financial resources deployed against its opponents, how difficult it was for the NRM to resist its way into government. But it is also difficult for anybody to understand why the current mission of the NRM is clearly to resist exiting power.

What first comes to my mind is the question of the “Resistance” notion that signifies the National Resistance Movement. This is a question of time, from 1981 to 1986, and from 1986 to 2013. Is the notion of ‘Resistance’ dependent on the calendar?

It is also a question of space between the mosquito and dirt laden Luweero Triangle bushes and forests, and the now air conditioned Parliament and the magnificent State House. Is the notion of ‘Resistance’ according to the physical location, or call it comfort, of the resister?

Questions
To the historical mind, was NRM not conceived to lead ‘Resistance’ to regimes, of both politicians and armies that claim to own power which should otherwise be the possession of the people? Was the ‘Resistance’ ideal of the NRM against those who challenge power? Could this ‘Resistance’ principle have been officially reconceived upside down? When, how, why, where and who effected this change?

But what is this NRM, which is famous for bravely resisting its way into power and now fantastically resisting its exit from power? Is NRM the NRM/Army which resisted government power? Or is NRM the NRM-Organisation which is using government power to resist? What is the meaning of ‘Resistance’ by the NRM/A, and by the NRM-O? Which of the two NRMs is NRM?

The NRM/Army was a revolutionary movement constituted of a few revolutionary politicians and an armed revolutionary struggle action army seeking to oust a political party that claimed possessive rights over constituting government as if it was its property.

The NRM-Organisation as a political party is a disparate group of politicians, and an immediate following of core members seeking to be paid for various roles in the 1996, 2001, 2006 and the 2011 elections. The NRM-O party also claims a mass following of demanding the fulfillment of the election promises.

The geographical landscape of the ‘resisting’ NRM/Army and the NRM-O stands in stark contrast. The NRM/Army was constituted of popular support and elitist resistance in Buganda and Western Uganda. The NRM/Army was generally resisted in the Lango, Acholi and Teso sub-regions. The NRM-O party is struggling against growing resistance in Buganda and western Uganda, while claiming popular gains in Lango, Acholi and Teso.

What does this shift inform about NRM and Uganda politics? NRM is digging into the support of the UPC during the period of the ‘Resistance’ struggle. Does this shift in support and opposition imply that the NRM is becoming the UPC that it resisted? So is NRM-O similar to the 1981-1986 NRM or is it becoming a reconstituted 1981-1986 UPC?
Focusing on the emerging issues, the NRM is grappling with the question of democracy as a global currency for the politics of any country to be accepted in the community of nations. To be conceptually specific, it is electoral democracy. But this democracy, except if NRM-O reads from a different script, means change.

NRM-O is faced with the challenge of operating a political system which has to ensure change of governments, change of representatives or change of leaders.

Today, it is only in North Korea, Burma and Cuba that the ideas of not providing for and actualising any of those three changes are still entertained. It is notable that the NRM-O while claiming to subscribe to the principle of democracy as change is trying to transform and apply the old NRM resistance from below to resistance from above.
And possibly due to the blinding effect of incumbency, the NRM-O is oblivious to the reality that the more they ‘successfully’ resist any of the three forms of exiting power, the greater the demands set by the population for their stay and discontent for failures.

The NRM-O can also not selectively resist any one or two of the three forms of democratic change. It cannot select to resist changing the NRM-O party leader, the national leader, and the ruling party while opting to change the faces of the NRM-O parliament representatives, without mounting and resistance. NRM-O resistance against exiting power will start generating popular resistance.

The NRM-O cannot any longer claim that it is resisting any forms of exit because it is developing Uganda.
The new and current meaning of development after adopting liberalization was initially ‘choice’ and later ‘choices’. People should be able to make a choice and to alternate between different choices, whether is of foods, music, education or forms of politics.

The NRM-O should appreciate that in respect to politics, Ugandans should be seen to be developing through being able to make a choice and to alternate between different choices. The current thinking of resisting is placing the NRM-O on the wrong side of history. It may appear or sound to conceptual as opposed to real and theoretical rather than practical, but today form is substance and substance is form. Otherwise Mubarak and Ghaddafi would still be presidents and Obama would not be president.

As the NRM-O resists exiting power, it is no longer clear whether it is simply a political party, a party-government where the organs of government are the same as those of the party or an extension of the state structures such as judiciary, public service, police and army.

If NRM-O is only a political party, then there is no excuse for not changing the faces in its internal leadership and even those it presents for national leadership. The writer is a doctorate fellow at Makerere University