Forecast for the year 2023

Although human beings live by double standards, they don’t like to see double standards in others. Ironic, but still true.

 The glaring double standards displayed by President Museveni with regard to the utterances on social media by his son Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba stirred deep resentment in the army and the ruling NRM party in 2022.

 Since these tweets by Muhoozi are unlikely to come to an end in 2023, this resentment will be expressed in greater impunity and lawlessness by the political and military establishment.

Attempts by the President to punish errant behaviour by referring to laws broken will raise the obvious fact that he did not apply any of the same laws when his son acted erratically in 2022.

It is worth noting that in 2022, Museveni said next to nothing about misbehaviour within the NRM and the army.

He appears to have been aware of the public revolt this would trigger off were he to attempt to discipline his officials (with the army, literally), given how he took no action on Muhoozi.

For 37 years, the Museveni government has proved impossible to topple from power in spite of the many justifiable reasons that call for that.

General elections, civil society and media activism, petitions before the courts of law, Western criticism and occasional aid cuts -- none of these have worked.

The most recent focus of hope, Bobi Wine’s National Unity Platform (NUP) party, which in 2020 promised to do what the FDC for 15 years had failed to do, that is change the government in power, also found itself hemmed in just like the FDC.

A section of Uganda’s political actors now believe the only option left to them is an armed struggle and in 2022, the country witnessed the beginning of the latest effort at this.

Whenever attacks were staged on police posts, the pylons that carry high-voltage electricity were also vandalised, clearly showing this was guerrilla warfare of some sort.

Targeting the electricity distribution network suggests a certain seriousness of purpose and planning on the part of the insurgents.

They were looking to undertake actions with a high impact on the country and sabotaging the electric power supply was an effective approach.

Attempting armed guerrilla warfare since 1986 has failed, mainly because insurgent groups took on the NRA/NRM in its area of strength and experience.

Sabotaging public infrastructure, therefore, is an easier resort. It takes much less skill to pull down power lines than it does recruiting, training, and concealing an armed rebel group.

What other tactics the insurgents will employ in 2023 remains to be seen, but their success so far in causing daily power blackouts in the country and the resulting frustration and halt in business activity will embolden then to focus on economic sabotage as the most effective tool.

Speaking of the economy, most small businesses will operate in 2023 not so much to make a profit, but to merely keep the entity going and to give the proprietor a sense of purpose and routine.
Kampala will still account for about 65 per cent of the national economy.

The 10 towns that were recently named cities will remain cities in name only.
At the fiscal policy level, Uganda’s fundamentals appear okay.

Interest rates, inflation, and the exchange rate of the shilling against major international currencies -- the three main measures -- remain fairly stable.

However, these three benchmarks in themselves do not address the present acute problem: Weak consumer demand.

The price of sugar, soap, or soda can remain stable, but of what use is this to businesses if purchasing power in the economy remains weak?

Even if the new roads recently built deliver trucks of beer, soda, clothing and other merchandise faster across the country, sales will still be slow.

The other hard fact will be the balance of payments deficit. Uganda imports more than twice the amount in cash terms what it exports.

Western governments will fill in the deficit with budget support as well as funding welfare and social programmes.

Chinese companies will continue to construct Uganda’s public works.
Unable to fundamentally change the economic basis of the country because of these built-in, structural weaknesses, President Museveni will continue to govern by offering speaking up hope and handing out patronage.

How will Ugandans respond to this shaky state of affairs?
The way they did in the early 1980s: By turning to the two extremes of holiness or hedonism.
It will be more and more drinking and partying during the army’s “panda gari” counterinsurgency operations.
If you’re not sure whether or not you’ll step on a landmine today or be picked up and taken for interrogation tomorrow, then routine activity like careful book keeping in business or saving some money become futile.

Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die, goes the logical thinking under these circumstances.
Others, faced with the same pressure and sense of imminent doom, turn to scripture and there is a growth in Uganda of prayer meetings, crusades, and often hysterical end-times cults appear.

As noted in the Christmas Day review of society in 2022, a significant factor in how Ugandans behave and think in public and private life is rooted in the country’s mental health data.

The cake has set, so to speak.
The national habit of cutting corners, disregarding rules and regulations, the lack of imagination and the lack of shame are now baked into the national culture and will shape 2023.

Ugandans’ response to the many challenges and inconveniences caused by their habit of cutting corners, is to cut even more corners.

Therefore, we can expect the same news and trends of 2022 to continue in 2023 -- reckless driving, litter everywhere, bribes at every level of public life, shoddy workmanship, an irrational thought pattern, and bitter strife between neighbours, relatives, and strangers alike.

Mr Timothy Kalyegira is a writer.