The making of a leader: 2026
After President Museveni has won the 2021 presidential election, his successor will be a prime minister. For the ruling group shall be changing horses midstream to trot out a parliamentary system of governance.
You see, the Parliament will be deemed too big. So it will have to be split in two to set the stage for a bicameral House.
Parliament shall thereby have two chambers, like in the UK which has the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
This system will give Parliament primacy, and thereby ultimate power over all other political bodies in the country.
To prepare for this new dispensation, the NRM’s school of thought has become like a school of fish.
Piranhas, to be exact. These tiny fish live in groups called a shoal. With razor-sharp teeth they can tear chunks of flesh from creatures many times their size by overwhelming prey in a choreographed feeding frenzy amidst bloodily churning waters.
The creature of the State is their prey.
These piranha are embodied by the numerous constituencies Parliament recently approved in accordance to Article 63 (1) of the Constitution. The said Article empowers Parliament to prescribe the number of constituencies for purposes of elections for Members of Parliament.
Courtesy of an earlier approval of 10 new cities that came into effect on July 1, the Eleventh Parliament will expand to a total of 497 elective seats of which 353 are direct constituencies, while 144 are Women MPs representing districts.
The new cities will comprise two divisions which are equivalent to municipalities with full representation to Parliament as well as a Woman MP.
In these piranha-infested waters, the State will be viciously devoured by these mini-monsters called constituencies. Parliament is already too big and the cost of increasing the size of its elephantiasis is enough to make an elephant dance, on its own grave.
Clearly, something fishy is afoot. It is apparent that the NRM (read Museveni) is thinking post-Museveni. They’ve figured out that the next leader who will come from the NRM will not be anywhere near as popular as President Museveni.
A quick tour d’horizon of the NRM reveals that it would be easier to get Mr Mukasa Mbidde to shave his famed eyebrows than to find a successor for President Museveni.
However, with a parliamentary system, the NRM will overwhelm the political waters with a piranha-like onslaught evidenced by the creation of multiple constituencies.
These constituencies will ensure the NRM wins and, through an elective dictatorship, the leader of the NRM will become prime minister and de jure leader of Uganda.
Our next leader won’t even have to hit the campaign trail, the party will perform that onerous task.
To be sure, the eventual prime minister will not require the personal charm of President Museveni. All he’ll require is a hegemonic party. With that, the candidate could even be Dikula and still constitutionally lead us. To where, God knows.
All told, President Museveni has always left his opponents trailing in his wake because while they look at actualities, he looks at possibilities.
He knows politics is the art of the possible and that the NRM cannot possibility win a presidential election without him as candidate.
So he’s orchestrated the creation of new constituencies to bloat the State to pregnancy. This prepares the ground for a new system to midwife changes that will put a virgin in the maternity ward to ensure she immaculately conceives.
However, the NRM should know that these Oboteist machinations are bound to fail. For “no matter how much you feed a lizard, it cannot become a crocodile.”
Mr Matogo is the managing editor Fasihi Magazine.
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