In both countries, the high-flown theorising about democracy, human rights and service delivery is out of touch with ordinary people’s preoccupations.
Uganda’s next general election is a whole two Christmases away, and yet inside the country one could be forgiven for imagining it is just around the corner. There are several reasons for this:
As Uganda and Rwanda inch closer to their next presidential elections, opinion polls and studies of all kinds continue to emerge, testing and highlighting the views of ordinary citizens about state institutions and Presidents Yoweri Museveni, and Paul Kagame.
The two men have certain things in common, including standing out among their peers in the region for their strength of character and single-minded pursuit of their visions; as great warriors; and for their willingness to think outside the proverbial box on politics and state building, and managing society.
Museveni invented Africa’s, and barring evidence to the contrary, the world’s first “no-party” political system and kept it going for a whole 20 years at a time when evangelists and exporters of liberal democracy and multiparty politics were oozing with confidence about the superiority of their ideas.
While the likes of Daniel Arap Moi in Kenya, Juvenal Habyarimana in Rwanda and Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia were being pushed by donors to “open up” the political playing field for inter-party competition, Museveni continued to insist, successfully, that Ugandans were too backward for that sort of thing.
Although commentators and theoreticians often questioned its substance, his no-party politics attracted much attention from students of what some call “African politics” but what is more accurately described as “politics in Africa.”
If there is no such thing as “Asian politics,” for example, the idea of “African politics” does not make sense.
And when Kagame led the Rwanda Patriotic Army to victory in Rwanda, he was instrumental in the introduction of a different kind of multiparty politics in which, rather than fight wars of attrition over power, political elites would seek to work together and share the responsibilities it bestowed on them.
Although Museveni eventually gave in to an adversarial multiparty system, he shows no sign of believing in it. And so he has continued to lead the country as if only one political party matters and is fit to run the country — his National Resistance Movement.
Because of this and his long stay in power, and also because of things such as corruption, authoritarianism and failure in service delivery with which his government has become associated, he has come in for a great deal of criticism from local elites and foreign commentators, including self-styled Uganda experts. Some go as far as asserting that he no longer enjoys popular support.
Kagame and his associates in the Rwanda Patriotic Front and supporters in other registered political parties continue to resist free-for-all political competition as a strategy designed mainly to keep extremist elements out of politics and prevent the possibility of Rwanda sliding back into the bad old days of political sectarianism. If poor, diseased and ill-educated Hutus were once told that equally poor, diseased and ill-educated Tutsis were their enemies, today both groups are being told that ethnic bigotry, disease, poverty and bad leadership are their common enemies.
For refusing to open up to adversarial contestation especially with groups judged to pose a threat to political stability, and for responding robustly to real and perceived security threats, Kagame and his government are the subjects of widespread condemnation, some of it from foreign governments that go around the world eliminating and torturing those they accuse of threatening their security and national interests.
There are strong indications that, alongside sharp criticism by local elites and foreign governments and interest groups, there is strong support for both presidents and their governments within their own countries.
In Rwanda, a recent highly debated study by a local think-tank shows approval ratings for President Kagame of 98.7 per cent and of 80 per cent for other politicians in general, with district mayors scoring 84.4 per cent, and the country’s senate, 83.4 per cent. Meanwhile the army comes in at 96.2 per cent.
Also, 83 per cent of Rwandans approve of the monthly day of communal work (Umuganda) that some foreign critics claim is forced labour. We may question the design or independence of the study.
Still, it raises questions about why there is such a mismatch between the views of ordinary Rwandans and those of elite local critics, and mainly foreign academic and media commentators, diplomats, and governments.
In Uganda, too, recent studies and polls show that Museveni continues to tower above all his political rivals, whether they are in his NRM or in opposition political parties. Of great significance is the fact that, while local critics in opposition parties and foreign and local commentators in media, academia, human-rights groups and diplomats cite lack of democracy and violation of human rights and poor-quality services as key weaknesses of his government, ordinary citizens disagree.
According to a recent poll, they rank poverty, unemployment and corruption in the public sector rank much higher than the issues his critics obsess about as reasons why he should leave power.
In both countries, clearly, the high-flown theorising about democracy, human rights and service delivery is out of touch with ordinary people’s preoccupations. These findings explode many cherished notions among elite groups about what ordinary people want from governments and their leaders.
