Is NUP, Bobi replicating NRM politics?

On Wednesday, The Observer ran an investigative story titled ‘Extortion scare rattles Bobi Wine.’ It made for startling and surreal reading. 

According to the story, middlemen and political buccaneers are making a killing selling access to the leader of the recently created National Unity Platform (NUP) party, the popstar-cum charismatic politician, Mr Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine. They extract money from individuals desperate to claim the party’s flag in next year’s elections.

If only a fraction of The Observer story is accurate, there is a colossal problem and cause for all Ugandans of good conscience to feel a deep sense of trepidation. 

I must concede I do not know enough about the goings on in the NUP to form a reasoned judgment and provide a fair assessment. I also should note that compatriot Bobi Wine’s courage and determination to challenge our authoritarian ruler of more than three-decades and rallying, especially young Ugandans to step forward, is laudable.

For a new political party seeking to contribute to the radical reform of our politics and to engineer meaningful change, the NUP must demonstrate that its internal setup, organisational ethos and modus operandi inspire confidence and represent a credible alternative to the status quo politics. 

The story of loyalists lined up along the path to the principal, and who are engaged in brokerage for financial returns, sounds much like the old rentier system of crony corruption we know to be patently part of Museveni’s system of rule. 

The fact that there are no clear rules and transparent mechanisms for deciding party candidates for the general election is quite ominous. The allegation that Mr Wine’s elder brother wields authority as to anoint prospective flagbearers has uncanny parallels with the NRM’s opaque system of kingmakers that include Museveni’s brother who happens to be Uganda’s defacto vice president.

Building a political party as a true institution is a herculean task. It takes time and requires a rugged leadership. But right from the outset, there are certain critical pillars and normative standards that must be established, nurtured and deepened. 

Arguably, the most important is the set of rules that must apply to all, including the party’s founders and leadership. When the basic rules governing an organisation do not apply to certain individuals, the road to autocracy and one-man rule is firmly established, precisely the case with the NRM and Mr Museveni.

Mr Bobi Wine has done a monumental job of creating panic and paranoid among our current rulers. In quick order, he has generated enthusiasm, won the admiration of millions of Ugandans and attracted popular approval, at least going by public sentiments although not tested in a real national electoral contest.

 Being charismatic and popular is one thing, and it is undoubtedly important in politics. Mustering the intellectual and organisational resources to build a political party, let alone run a government, is quite another. 

Once he moved from a defacto leader of a spontaneous ‘People Power’ movement, with a vague outlook, to heading a political party expected to reflect certain characteristics, Mr Wine has put himself in the spotlight. 

That is, will he preside over a party managed democratically, governed by rules and not individual brokers, and which shows a marked departure from what we already have?

Uganda is at political crossroads; it has for a while. There is an urgent need to end the current dysfunctional system, under capture and irreparably afflicted by endemic corruption and abuse of power. 

We need to reimagine a new Uganda away from rule by guns and politics of deception. This will only happen through a concerted process of negotiations and settlement involving both progressive forces and those grafted to the status quo. This process can scarcely be as simple as running and defeating Museveni in a general election. 

If I had the chance to advise brother Bobi Wine, launching a new political party would not have been anywhere on the agenda. 

I am happy to eat humble pie in the months ahead, but I do not see how the formation of NUP, and considering what appears to be the dispiriting state of play at the present, advances the cause of fundamental change in our national politics.
Mr Khisa is assistant professor at North Carolina State University (USA).
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