MUSEVENI 24 YEARS LATER: It has been a move from chaos to tyranny and tyrannical stability

NRM failures at a glance

• Failed to deliver free-and-fair elections.
• Failed to create consensus on democracy, citizenship, political systems, respect and protection of human rights, fundamental freedoms and electoral system.
• The President has an over-bearing influence over Parliament, often pushing MPs to pass laws he is interested in.
• The appointment of political cadres to the bench could jeopardise the independence of the Judiciary
• Other agencies like the Police, Civil Service, Teaching Service are also being “infiltrated” by military and political appointees.
• Political parties have been denied space to organise while the Movement continues to operate side by side with other parties despite claims of a multi-party dispensation.
• Employment in the formal sector remains low.
• Tax collection has stagnated at 12/13 per cent--below the African avarage of 18 per cent.
• Corruption has reached the Mobutu/Suharto/Ferdinand levels.
• Too many ghosts. Ghost teachers and students, ghost health workers and health facilities.
• Merit no longer a requirement in appointments and promotions in government jobs.
• The North was at war for over two decades and remains underdeveloped.

Thus the movement system continues to operate as before side-by-side with political parties which are allowed to operate within restricted bounds.

Case of EC
The NRM political school managed by the UPDF continues to operate as before. The movement-era Electoral Commission remains in place with members appointed on the same criteria and in the same manner as RDCs. To maintain local councils as structures of the NRM, competitive elections have not been held since 2006 when their terms of office expired.

With regard to the economy, there were successes in turning round the economy and in maintaining macro-economic stability.
The rehabilitation and reconstruction phase attracted huge international support resulting in improved physical and social infrastructure. Employment levels in the formal sectors remain very low.

Tax collection improved but is dominated by indirect and import taxes and has stagnated at 12/13 per cent far below the African average of 18 per cent (Kenya 24 per cent).

Reports of foreign investment are of licensed projects by the UIA not of actual investment made. The country has registered respectable growth rates but the high birth rate and huge disparities between the rich and poor make the growth another ghost to the majority.

Governance, human rights protection, openness and accountability, due process and fair trial improved for sometime but there has been a sharp decline in the last 10 years.

The levels of corruption have reached the Mobutu/Suharto/Ferdinand Marcos levels and the regime can be rightly classified as a kleptocracy; corruption, loss of gains that had been made, has occurred at central and local government levels undermining service delivery so much so that no one takes the President’s lamentations seriously.

There are ghost teachers and students, ghost health workers and ghost health facilities and payment for air supply has become common place. Numerous scandals involving high level personalities have created a thriving sector of commissions of inquiry. Nepotism and cronyism are dominant features in recruitment, promotions and in doing business with government.

Greatest failure
The greatest failure, however, has been the failure to deliver free-and-fair elections, the alleged cause of the Luwero war. The elections of 1996, 2001, 2006 under Museveni have not been deemed free and fair.

It seems this is an ingrained character trait as in some of these elections Museveni could have won without rigging.
For elections to be considered free-and-fair, there must be agreed rules for the electoral process and they must be conducted by an electoral management body accepted and respected by all the participants in the elections.

Failure to meet this requirement explains why elections are always considered rigged and do not achieve the finality they should.
Museveni has so changed Uganda that everything revolves around him.
The 24 years have been a movement from chaos (Lutwa) and tyrannical instability (Obote 11) to relative peace and more or less tyrannical stability.