Besigye has done what he ought to have done in the 2016 election
In some countries, headlines are made when incumbents resign or announce plans not to seek re-election.
In Uganda and a few other countries, the headline is about an Opposition politician giving up the fight, or not running for yet another election.
This is the case with Dr Kizza Besigye of the Forum for Democratic Change, who, despite protracted efforts by his fans and supporters in the party, says he will not run for president in 2021.
This column has previously argued that Besigye’s decision to run in 2016 was a strategic mistake.
Besigye had sworn not to run in another election conducted by Dr Badru Kiggundu-led Electoral Commission; doing so meant he went against his word and undermined his standing as a man of principle.
More importantly, there was a wing in the FDC party led by Gen Mugisha Muntu, which believed in the kind of normative politics mobilise, build structures and win power through the electoral process that Besigye and others believed was an impossibility.
Allowing them to test their hypothesis in an election was a low-risk, high-reward option: Win against all odds, and there would certainly be room for Besigye and others with a more direct approach to politics. Lose, and confirm the failure of the normative approach, then validate the alternative approach.
Standing, on the other hand, meant using the very electoral avenue that had been discredited for the lopsided advantages it gives the incumbent, and providing critics who saw it as sheer opportunism with cannon fodder.
These internal tensions in short order effectively led to the splitting of the FDC into the normative wing under Muntu in the Alliance for National Transformation, and a more direct one loyal to Besigye, but under the administrative hands of Patrick Amuriat and secretary general Nandala Mafabi.
Little has changed between 2016 and 2020 to suggest that the electoral process can be necessarily more transparent or the playing field less lopsided. The EC is now in the hands of Justice Simon Byabakama, who prosecuted Besigye in the farcical rape and treason trials a decade and a half ago; the incumbent can fire technocrats at the Commission who are in charge of the election at a whim as he did a few weeks ago; and a large chunk of the national budget remains available to reward patronage networks in exchange for electoral support.
In addition, repeated calls for electoral reforms by the Supreme Court have been ignored, the courts are crammed with cadres, the Legislature has its leadership falling over itself to prove loyalty to the head of the Executive, and the coronavirus pandemic threatens to make the election even more farcical than usual: Candidates can campaign using mass media, but the State broadcaster is openly partisan, and the police and State functionaries won’t allow those from the Opposition to even pay for airtime on private stations.
Almost two decades after the return to multiparty politics, the ruling NRM has morphed into an extension of the State, effectively creating the one-party State that the incumbent always wanted, financed by and living off the State.
To call an election held in such circumstances a contest is at best optimistic and naïve at worst. It might cause a bit of noise here and there and even a few high profile upsets in the parliamentary races, but it is effectively a selection, not an election.
A change of president can, of course, drive some important reforms, especially if the new leader is selfless and not beholden to whichever forces propel them into office.
However, what we will need after the incumbent’s inevitable departure is a complete overhaul of our institutions of governance, including Parliament, the Judiciary and the civil service.
While elections help energise the base, they only do so momentarily and at the cost of legitimising what is, in many aspects, a process with a pre-determined outcome.
Rallying Ugandans for a more effective, equitable and accountable government is a full-time job that has to find more imaginative ways to generate consensus and drive action beyond the five-year electoral cycle.
It is possible that elections can bring landslides that push incumbents out of office and allow for the reformatting of the State without their domineering shadow lurking.
But with Ugandan politics narrowing in scope, becoming shallower in depth and more acrimonious and parochial, true reforms will come from rallying citizens around an agenda of reform first including how to conduct elections.
To run in a race that one considers already rigged, but hope for a different outcome, is sub-optimal. Hope is not good strategy.
Mr Kalinaki is a journalist and poor man’s freedom fighter.
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@Kalinaki
