As President Yoweri Museveni enters the second year of his fifth presidential term, he faces a growing and insistent opposition unprecedented in his over 25 years at the helm of Uganda.
This opposition has succeeded in shifting the debate from whether political reform is necessary to when, leaving him with the choice of initiating and shaping its terms or risk having it forced on him.
This realisation, said director of Makerere Institute of Social Research Mahmood Mamdani, explains the growing opposition against hardliners within the regime.
“The ‘soft liners’ have a more political approach and a more strategic appreciation of the situation, that the real choice is not whether to reform, but to initiate reform now or be forced to do so later;to shape the terms of the reform or to lose control over it,” he said.
Prof Mamdani said how this debate is resolved will have great significance for Museveni’s second year and beyond.
NRM deputy spokesperson Ofwono Opondo said the party is aware of the need for reforms but the point of departure is in their nature and extent. Where, for instance, NRM will have none of opposition politicians’ insistence on wholesale change of regime. However, the same government has shown little interest in piecemeal reforms, like, say, restoring presidential term limits. Yasin Olum, an associate professor of political science at Makerere University, said much of the agitation that attended Museveni’s first year is due to a contraction of the democratic space, where political parties can air their views.
Unbearable Conditions
According to Mr Olum, Museveni has created conditions similar to those that prevailed in 1980, which he used to justify going to war.
From his swearing-in, when multitudes thronged Entebbe road to welcome back his archrival Dr Kizza Besigye, till now, Museveni has been openly challenged and defied both within his party and outside, with the most surprising defiance coming from religious leaders from all denominations.
Inspired by the people’s uprisings that swept across North Africa, Walk to Work protests were organised to express discontent with the rapid rise in the cost of living, which is blamed on the government’s freewheeling expenditure.
The protests inspired at least 20 strikes and demonstrations by traders, taxi operators, teachers, university lecturers, lawyers, nurses and motorcycle taxi operators.
According to the Afro Barometer February survey, in a space of one year, people who identified with the ruling NRM party had dropped from 62 per cent to 47 per cent. Another public opinion poll by Research World International released on Tuesday reflects similar sentiments.
Over the same period, the police registered the highest number of complaints arising out of violation of people’s rights from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, according to the 2011 Uganda Human Rights Commission report.
“The sledgehammer approach of last year is a clue to the kind of lessons that the political establishment, at least a section of it, drew from the Arab Spring. Ironically, they identified with the fallen dictators rather than with popular protest against them,” said Mamdani.
Dr Patrick Wakida, who heads RWI, says it’s within the government’s roles and obligations to initiate constructive dialogue with its opposition under an agenda that clear and constructive.
