Forget freeing Besigye, FDC needs more officials arrested with him
There are a handful of FDC party officials in the video in which Dr Kizza Besigye appears to swear himself in as winner of the 2016 election, and thus duly elected president.
Besigye is facing treason charges in connection with that video. The question that logically follows is, why haven’t any of the other party officials in the video been charged with misprision of treason, or failing to report the alleged offence to the authorities?
The answer, simply, is that the NRM government has cunningly managed to isolate Besigye both within and outside the party, and, in narrowing violence against just him among top party officials, managed to create the impression that he is either part of the problem, or at the very least getting what he deserves.
“Why always him,” they ask, a refrain that then gets echoed at dinner tables and in drinking joints across the country. “How come other politicians don’t get into trouble with the law?”
This dilemma has boxed the Opposition into a corner. On the one hand, it has turned Besigye into a larger-than-life figure who will bring any town or street to a standstill by his mere appearance, forcing illegalities from State functionaries as they try to abuse law enforcement and judicial procedures to contain his political support.
On the other hand, however, it has played straight into the hands of the government. While the ability to shut down urban areas on a whim is exciting and makes great evening television bulletins, it perpetuates the current state of play of our politics as a personality contest, rather than as a clash of policies and divergent worldviews.
Being beaten in the streets wins sympathy from people across the political divide but what will win votes is a clear articulation of a different future for the country able to resonate with enough voters, especially younger Ugandans who don’t have the time or inclination to listen to the ‘since 1986’ snooze fest.
There is evidence that this works. Even using the disputed official results from the Electoral Commission, Besigye grew his number of voters by 1.4 million between 2011 and 2016. Museveni, for all his advantages of incumbency, only got 543,503 new votes in the same period. Assuming that many of these are new voters, it means that for every vote cast for the status quo, three were cast for change.
It is hard to put a specific number on the impact of disenfranchisement and other irregularities on the final result but plotted on a straight line, and with improvements in transparency and civic awareness, the gap between those voting for no change and those seeking alternatives is likely to drop significantly in 2021.
The Opposition need to go from playing only defence (of human rights and basic political freedoms), to also playing offensive and showing us how this country can and should be managed better, and why they are the people to get the job done.
Many of these ideas are probably already in their manifestos and policy papers; they must be applied to the on-going public conversation of what’s broken in this country – an area in which the sitting government is a gift that keeps on giving.
This requires the Opposition to do at least three things. First, they must maintain the visibility that Besigye gives them but must bring other politicians to the limelight, particularly those in the shadow cabinet, to give us an idea of the quality of this government-in-waiting.
Secondly, FDC needs to bring in more brains to articulate its policy positions more coherently. Besigye is often surrounded by brave souls who’ve shown their ability to withstand the excesses of the regime but brawlers like ‘Musayi gwa Nkoko’ are not the kind to argue a party position on quantitative easing or an economic stimulus package.
Third, FDC must clarify its strategy. If it is to delegitimise what it considers an illegal government, then its MPs have no business sitting in Parliament, for one. If, however, it is to continue exposing the shortcomings of the government and proposing better alternatives with a view to taking power at the ballot box, then it must articulate and organise better.
FDC has scored significant gains in a very hostile environment, playing in an unfair game. To take power it must go from complaining about the rules to having the game played on its own terms. One measure of progress will be how many top officials join Besigye on the streets, in public discourse, and in jail.
Mr Kalinaki is a Ugandan journalist based in Nairobi.
[email protected] Twitter: @Kalinaki
