FDC is dying but if it (or NUP) took power, would it do better?

The writing is on the wall. Politicians have done their best to drive the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) into the ground. From the looks of things, they are doing really well and have nearly succeeded.

The party’s woes have made some of the biggest news stories of 2023, and FDC supporters must be wondering how a party that they have been banking on to deliver much-needed change, considering that the governing NRM has been a complete let-down, has gone from strength to strictures on the deplorable way it is managed.

Attention is now turning to the National Unity Platform (NUP), arguably the biggest Opposition political party, with many wondering whether it will remain united and do better, although critics are already saying it could go the way of the FDC.

It is hard to disagree with the critics. There is nothing to suggest that the NUP is immune to the shocks that the FDC is grappling with. 

At the FDC, money is and has been the cause of the rift — and it is not inconceivable that greed for money can break the NUP. NUP politicians, after all, are humans, like everybody else, with (many) weaknesses.

Some became politicians not because they cared a lot about Uganda but because they wanted to eat, as Ugandans say. 

But if eating in a mere political party, which does not bear comparison with Uganda in terms of resources, can spark fights and name-calling, what would happen if the FDC or the NUP assumed power and, by extension, total control of the country’s resources?

It seems to me that people who genuinely believe that their wellbeing will be taken care of by politicians are expecting too much. Politicians’ priorities tend to be pro-people before they come to power, but once they assume power, those priorities often change.

In Uganda, we complain about corruption and how our meagre resources are squandered to cater to politicians’ needs. We listen to leading Opposition figures such as Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine, and Dr Kizza Besigye criticising Mr Museveni and his NRM for wasting taxpayers’ money and fondly imagine their governments will stop spending on luxuries for politicians.

Yet if both men came to power, they would probably do what Mr Museveni is doing. Consider this: Mr Kyagulanyi and Dr Besigye are generally thought to be rich — at least by Ugandan standards. They traverse Uganda using their personal cars, but the cars are pretty old. Neither has used his own money to buy a swanky SUV of the kind politicians in power and people in high-income countries drive.

If Mr Kyagulanyi and Dr Besigye became presidents, they would never be caught in the cars that they now drive. Of that I do not have the smallest doubt. 

And you have to wonder: If politicians really care about people’s wellbeing, as they keep saying, why do they not continue using old cars, the type sold in makeshift showrooms around Kampala called ‘bonds’, and use money for expensive cars to solve problems of voters?

Why do politicians go for a 2021/2022 Land Cruiser when the taxpayer is paying, yet when they use their own money, they go for a cheap and old 2001 Land Cruiser?

Some people will say that leaders will always be leaders and cannot live like ordinary people. But Uruguay’s former president, Jose Mujica, never drove an expensive official car. 

He had to make do with a 1987 Volkswagen Beetle and lived in a one-bedroom farmhouse. Yet Uruguay is a high-income country, unlike Uganda.

Mr Musaazi Namiti is a journalist and former
Al Jazeera digital editor in charge of the Africa desk
[email protected]    @kazbuk