Selling Muhoozi by propaganda

Whether Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba cuts an inspiring figure or a pathetic one is not my present concern. I will be completely neutral.
If he is charmed by Vladimir Putin’s barbarism, that is his right. Discussion closed.
Rumours about a huge military convoy and mobile s**t-house will not distract me. I have seen pastors swagger like Sicilian gangsters with armed uniformed government guards. Why not a general?

Ugandans generally love weddings and funerals and spend heavily on them. Gen Muhoozi has just added birthdays. Ignore the critics.
And reflect; don’t we look more deplorable feasting at a funeral than a birthday?
Are you querying a serving soldier doing politics? Calm down. Ugandans are pig-headed. Whole professors are teaching university courses that are not officially permitted. Suspend all your formed opinions. Be neutral.

However, between now and any-which-if fateful day Gen Muhoozi’s name appears on the ballot paper, he will try to market himself. How much help will propagandists give him, regardless of his strengths and weaknesses?
Social media junkies have access to plenty of material. Their narratives may be different, but I gather from the old-fashioned media that Gen Muhoozi has appointed Tamale Mirundi as his spokesman in Buganda.

So, Mirundi’s work is to spread, spin or fabricate information that convinces people who dwell in Buganda to want Muhoozi for President.
Mirundi is very excited about the appointment. He has compared himself to Lazarus, whom God (in this case Museveni) ‘killed’, and whom the Son of God (in this case Muhoozi) ‘resurrected’.

Presumably, resurrection means bigger cake.
But bigger cake does not mean easier work. Mirundi now has to market Muhoozi for the presidency to sort out Museveni’s failing State. However, remembering not to put all his eggs in one basket, Mirundi has also to market Museveni for re-election because Museveni probably does not want to relinquish power.

Eating the bigger cake without throwing away the small cake; resurrected but still dead. It is a hard Voodoo feat even for Mirundi, whose personal cult mythology includes fictions of simultaneously appearing in two places.
More seriously, in his current guise(s), Mirundi has to kill demons that will crawl from files of his earlier talk-show footage.

For instance, when Dr Kizza Besigye, Gen Mugisha Muntu and the late Gen Benon Biraaro contested the presidency, Mirundi argued that Ugandans would not tolerate the unfairness of having another president hailing from Ankole.
Apparently, not only hailing from Ankole, but from Museveni’s family, Muhoozi might have to be gazetted as a non-Munyankole to meet Mirundi’s old reasoning before succeeding his father as President.

Then, Mirundi viciously and endlessly argued/argues that Odrek Rwabwogo cannot inherit the presidency because he is Museveni’s son-in-law, not his son; that it is a son (or sons) who rightfully inherit power.
Question: If Mirundi’s (African?) clan principle is not put in our Constitution – and it probably will not – how can Ugandans ensure in future that only Muhoozi’s son replaces a President Muhoozi?

Will Mirundi, and maybe his ghost, be perpetually employed by the Museveni dynasty to preach the clan principle?
Finally, whether Mirundi’s reasoning is sound or not, Byabakamaesque election mathematics gave us 2021 results showing that the nationwide propaganda effort to sell Museveni did not succeed in Buganda. And Buganda was probably where most of Mirundi’s mouth output was (and is) directed.

Tireless propagandist he may be, but you can see how steep Mirundi’s hill looks with Muhoozi on his back and Museveni on his head; and at the very same time Museveni on his back and Muhoozi on his head.
Mr Tacca is a novelist, socio-political commentator.
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