Factors behind NRM’s victory
Mar 06, 2011
BEFORE the elections, I wrote an article in the New Vision paper predicting that the NRM would win with a landslide. This article was published in the late edition of the Sunday Vision of 13th February, 2011.
By Gen. (Rtd) Yoweri Museveni
BEFORE the elections, I wrote an article in the New Vision paper predicting that the NRM would win with a landslide. This article was published in the late edition of the Sunday Vision of 13th February, 2011.
Probably the opposition leaders did not read it. Please, read it if you did not. To recapitulate what I said in that article, I made the following points:
1.NRM and its predecessors – PRA, UPM, FRONASA, USARF, etc., have always been principled forces battling opportunists or criminal forces. In 1966, we opposed UPC’s abrogation of the 1962 Constitution. Although Mengo had its own mistakes such as promoting tribal chauvinism, blocking the introduction of democracy in Buganda, etc., it was wrong for the UPC to abrogate the Constitution. They should have used constitutional means to struggle against Mengo’s mistakes. In any case, they should have taken the same stand as Ben Kiwanuka of DP who did not want the Kabaka to be involved in politics. Had UPC and DP taken common principled positions on some of these issues; Uganda would, most probably, not have had the problems we had.
NRM always stands for principles and never supports an opportunistic position. We supported liberation movements in Southern Africa in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s – until South Africa got freedom.
We have stood for the freedom of the people of Rwanda, Congo and the Sudan (the Black people there). What were the other political groups or individuals doing vis-Ã -vis this enslavement of the Black people? Either nothing or they were collaborating with the oppressive forces.
While we stood with the people of Southern Sudan, for instance, some groups were supporting Kony who was an agent of the oppressive forces in Khartoum. We stood against Amin when he was killing people in Uganda. We opposed UPC’s mistakes in the 1980s in Luwero and in West Nile where they were most pronounced. Of recent, we opposed opportunists who were trying to use cultural institutions to promote tribalism and to meddle in politics.
We always struggle for the interests of the ordinary people. We protected them from extra-judicial killings by security forces or by anybody else. We struggled for universal immunisation so as to guard our children against the killer diseases – small pox, polio, T.B., diphtheria, tetanus, etc. We struggled for education for all – through UPE, USE and, in the near future, we shall offer free education for A Level, Technical education and student loans for University education in addition to the complete free University education for the 4000 best performers each year.
We are determined to transform the traditional subsistence agriculture into commercial agriculture with food security as one component of that package through the reformed NAADS. Rather than consuming all the money in salaries for politicians and public servants, we have set up a Road Fund and an Energy Fund to modernise our infrastructure so as to lower the costs of doing business in Uganda and make Uganda a more attractive destination for investments. While some of the groups promote sectarianism and chauvinisms, we stand for patriotism, nationalism and Pan-Africanism because our people need markets where they can sell whatever they produce to get prosperity. Therefore, the last 45 years have been a very long journey along which the NRM has been battling oppressors, parasites and opportunists with logic, polemics and, occasionally, with arms. We have always won these battles, the protracted-ness of the struggle notwithstanding.
The oppressors, the opportunists and the parasites try to obscure all these essentials for our people’s survival with lies, distortions, diversions, etc.
We, however, always expose these schemes to the people of Uganda and the people always, in the main, understand and stand with us. They did it in the bush war, they did it in the 1994 constituent Assembly (CA) elections, the 1996 elections, the 2001 elections, the 2006 elections and they have just done it in the just concluded elections of February 18th, 2011.
2.The 2011 elections, however, had another dimension. After many years of fighting Sudanese sponsored terrorism and the Karimojong cattle-rustlers, the UPDF has defeated these killers. The whole country is now in peace.
This has created conditions for the whole country acting together politically. The people in West Nile and North-central Uganda are now politically together with the rest of the country. This has never happened. In the 1962 elections, Buganda was under Kabaka Yekka (KY), Busoga was under UPC, Ankole, Tooro and Bunyoro were under DP, Lango under UPC, etc. In fact, no party had more than 50% of the votes in the whole country. Indeed, direct elections did not take place in Buganda. Only indirect elections were permitted.
Outside Buganda, the following were the scores in terms of votes: UPC got 494,959 votes; DP got 415,718 votes. Although the votes of DP and UPC were, more or less, the same, UPC got 37 seats outside Buganda and DP got 24. This was due to the deliberate gerrymandering of the constituencies by the British in favour of UPC because of their sectarian mentality. The British were anti-DP because it was a Catholic Party. Of course, the whole scenario of sectarian parties was bankrupt.
Today, however, the NRM has succeeded in uniting the people of Uganda. The 68% of the valid votes that were for the Presidential candidate for NRM represented a win in all the four regions of Uganda: Northern 53.69%, Eastern 58.95%, Buganda 52.84% and Western 80.89%. The invalid votes were 4% of the total votes. Most of these are normally NRM votes spoilt by election officials to undermine the NRM. We may ask for the further examination of this matter – not in an attempt to alter the declared results but as a matter of curiosity. In fact, the NRM vote is much higher.
I told you in the article of 13th February, 2011, that we had carried out a household census. We found that 84% of the homesteads in Uganda are NRM. There is, therefore, no way any opposition group or a combination of them can win.
In fact, the only problem NRM has is some of the selfish careerist NRM leaders who are only thinking of themselves and not the party or the country. As I said at Kololo, during the victory celebrations, there is no opposition in Uganda. Where you find the so-called “oppositionâ€, it is on account of the weaknesses of the local leaders of NRM. They are not in touch with the local interest groups: youth, peasants, churches, etc.; they promote unprincipled contradictions among the people; or they fail to defend the masses against the corruption of the local leaders. This trend of the masses of Uganda being united is, therefore, irreversible.
Opportunists like Besigye who praise Amin’s mistakes in West Nile, talk of “federo†in Buganda, talk of religious sectarianism in other parts of the country, support cattle-rustling in Karamoja, then “mourn†with the Itesot for the loss of their cattle on account of cattle-rustling, tell the people in Lango, Teso and Acholi that Museveni intends to steal their land and has already sold Lake Kyoga, etc., were confusing some sections of our people under only two circumstances: terrorism in the North and cattle-rustling by Karimojong killers on the one hand and the reliance on foreign funding for Uganda’s development on the other hand. These two phenomena gave opportunists chances to abuse the intelligence of our people. These two phenomena plus the weaknesses of our local leaders, including Resident District Commissioners (RDCs), allowed the opportunists to persist with these lies.
The Banyankore, however, say: “Enjiiri ezaire teriibwa mbwa†– ‘a warthog that has produced children cannot be eaten by dogs – the young warthogs will defend it.’ That phenomenon is already emerging in Uganda. You get a number of young NRM workers like the Hon Caroline Okao of Amolatar, Hon Mohammed Nsereko of Kampala Central, Hon Ronald Kibuule of Mukono, the youth groups that were providing the music at my rallies to entertain the people to the chagrin of the local leaders who bore the people by the crave to “introduce†themselves and shout meaningless slogans, Nina Mbabazi and her group of researchers and many others some of whom I introduced at our victory rally at Kololo. These young people are really thorough. They remind me of our young days in FRONASA, USARF, etc. They leave nothing to chance. They know the role of the media and challenge the mendacious opposition there, they know social programmes like the screening of women for cervical cancer, economic programmes like micro-finance to the malwa groups, etc.
Unfortunately, they are resented by the old guards in some cases because the latter think that the sharper insights of these young cadres are a criticism of the failures of the senior members. This is a wrong attitude. The senior members did their bit of, for instance, identifying with the NRM at a time the party was unpopular in some areas. That is good enough credit. Do not spoil that credit by resenting the young people who are adding value to the organization. With the value addition of these young people, the NRM is becoming formidable politically. I am also aware of the good work of some of the senior NRM leaders in different areas. You can easily see that through the cohesion of the NRM and the community in their respective areas.
3.The third factor why the NRM is becoming formidable politically is due to the socio-economic programmes of the NRM. You go to Kisoro, Zirobwe, Bundibugyo, Ibanda, Kapeeka-Semuto, Mubende, Fort-Portal, Kyenjonjo, Kyegyegwa, Dokolo, Lira, Pakwach, Nebbi, Arua, Kapchorwa, etc and you talk against the NRM, people will think you are out of your mind.
The reception I received at Kalerwe market on account of the new roads from Kasangati and the Northern by-pass as well as the water operated public toilets in the area was most pleasing. The new roads to these areas cannot permit the opportunists going round telling lies.
As we are going to implement our mega projects – the roads, the power projects, etc. – it will be difficult terrain for the opportunists to peddle lies against the NRM. We are going to implement NAADS programmes, UPE, USE, SACCOs, BPOs, correctly this time, without tolerating distortions or deviations by any public official.
The stealing of drugs in hospitals and health units is going to be eliminated. My 242 mega rallies in the whole of Uganda have not been in vain. They did not only win us votes but they were social research for me. I now know what the people want and cherish. Fortunately, I moved around in some of the rallies with Mrs. Namubiru Rwabushaija, the President of the Teachers Association so that she could hear what the people thought of the teachers and health workers.
The correctness of our strategy of balancing expenditure on wages of public servants on the one hand and socio-economic as well as infrastructure development on the other hand is being proven correct.
We are avoiding the mistake that has crippled many of the African countries where whatever little money that is available is consumed by the wages of the public servants and nothing remains for infrastructure and socio-economic programmes for the masses except the donor-funded efforts which are ridiculously inadequate. “Garya embibo gashekyera ekiteme, the Banyankore say. This means that the “unwise man cooks seeds and eats them when he is hungry and when it comes to the planting season, he has nothing to plant; he only smiles at the garden with the teeth that ate the seeds.†As we collect more taxes, the salaries of public servants will go up. However, we cannot forget the roads, the railway, electricity, UPE, USE, NAADS, SACCOs, etc. Uganda is going to become a middle-income country by 2016.
The Banyankore say: “Otarikumanya ngu bamutsigire, ati bandinzire†– the uninformed person thinks that co-travellers are waiting for him to start the journey together when, in fact, the other travellers are already far on their journey.
The opportunists did not know that the NRM is always the doer throughout the 40 years it has been active in Uganda’s politics. It has been the solver of our people’s problems. Even the Ugandans who did not know this now know it.
By defeating Kony and disarming the Karimojong, on top of its socio-economic and infrastructure programmes, the NRM is putting the final nails into the coffin of the opportunistic opposition groups. The Bible says: “We shall know them by their fruits.†That is certainly the opinion of the Ugandans. I thank you.
The writer is the President /NRM Chairman
BEFORE the elections, I wrote an article in the New Vision paper predicting that the NRM would win with a landslide. This article was published in the late edition of the Sunday Vision of 13th February, 2011.
Probably the opposition leaders did not read it. Please, read it if you did not. To recapitulate what I said in that article, I made the following points:
1.NRM and its predecessors – PRA, UPM, FRONASA, USARF, etc., have always been principled forces battling opportunists or criminal forces. In 1966, we opposed UPC’s abrogation of the 1962 Constitution. Although Mengo had its own mistakes such as promoting tribal chauvinism, blocking the introduction of democracy in Buganda, etc., it was wrong for the UPC to abrogate the Constitution. They should have used constitutional means to struggle against Mengo’s mistakes. In any case, they should have taken the same stand as Ben Kiwanuka of DP who did not want the Kabaka to be involved in politics. Had UPC and DP taken common principled positions on some of these issues; Uganda would, most probably, not have had the problems we had.
NRM always stands for principles and never supports an opportunistic position. We supported liberation movements in Southern Africa in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s – until South Africa got freedom.
We have stood for the freedom of the people of Rwanda, Congo and the Sudan (the Black people there). What were the other political groups or individuals doing vis-Ã -vis this enslavement of the Black people? Either nothing or they were collaborating with the oppressive forces.
While we stood with the people of Southern Sudan, for instance, some groups were supporting Kony who was an agent of the oppressive forces in Khartoum. We stood against Amin when he was killing people in Uganda. We opposed UPC’s mistakes in the 1980s in Luwero and in West Nile where they were most pronounced. Of recent, we opposed opportunists who were trying to use cultural institutions to promote tribalism and to meddle in politics.
We always struggle for the interests of the ordinary people. We protected them from extra-judicial killings by security forces or by anybody else. We struggled for universal immunisation so as to guard our children against the killer diseases – small pox, polio, T.B., diphtheria, tetanus, etc. We struggled for education for all – through UPE, USE and, in the near future, we shall offer free education for A Level, Technical education and student loans for University education in addition to the complete free University education for the 4000 best performers each year.
We are determined to transform the traditional subsistence agriculture into commercial agriculture with food security as one component of that package through the reformed NAADS. Rather than consuming all the money in salaries for politicians and public servants, we have set up a Road Fund and an Energy Fund to modernise our infrastructure so as to lower the costs of doing business in Uganda and make Uganda a more attractive destination for investments. While some of the groups promote sectarianism and chauvinisms, we stand for patriotism, nationalism and Pan-Africanism because our people need markets where they can sell whatever they produce to get prosperity. Therefore, the last 45 years have been a very long journey along which the NRM has been battling oppressors, parasites and opportunists with logic, polemics and, occasionally, with arms. We have always won these battles, the protracted-ness of the struggle notwithstanding.
The oppressors, the opportunists and the parasites try to obscure all these essentials for our people’s survival with lies, distortions, diversions, etc.
We, however, always expose these schemes to the people of Uganda and the people always, in the main, understand and stand with us. They did it in the bush war, they did it in the 1994 constituent Assembly (CA) elections, the 1996 elections, the 2001 elections, the 2006 elections and they have just done it in the just concluded elections of February 18th, 2011.
2.The 2011 elections, however, had another dimension. After many years of fighting Sudanese sponsored terrorism and the Karimojong cattle-rustlers, the UPDF has defeated these killers. The whole country is now in peace.
This has created conditions for the whole country acting together politically. The people in West Nile and North-central Uganda are now politically together with the rest of the country. This has never happened. In the 1962 elections, Buganda was under Kabaka Yekka (KY), Busoga was under UPC, Ankole, Tooro and Bunyoro were under DP, Lango under UPC, etc. In fact, no party had more than 50% of the votes in the whole country. Indeed, direct elections did not take place in Buganda. Only indirect elections were permitted.
Outside Buganda, the following were the scores in terms of votes: UPC got 494,959 votes; DP got 415,718 votes. Although the votes of DP and UPC were, more or less, the same, UPC got 37 seats outside Buganda and DP got 24. This was due to the deliberate gerrymandering of the constituencies by the British in favour of UPC because of their sectarian mentality. The British were anti-DP because it was a Catholic Party. Of course, the whole scenario of sectarian parties was bankrupt.
Today, however, the NRM has succeeded in uniting the people of Uganda. The 68% of the valid votes that were for the Presidential candidate for NRM represented a win in all the four regions of Uganda: Northern 53.69%, Eastern 58.95%, Buganda 52.84% and Western 80.89%. The invalid votes were 4% of the total votes. Most of these are normally NRM votes spoilt by election officials to undermine the NRM. We may ask for the further examination of this matter – not in an attempt to alter the declared results but as a matter of curiosity. In fact, the NRM vote is much higher.
I told you in the article of 13th February, 2011, that we had carried out a household census. We found that 84% of the homesteads in Uganda are NRM. There is, therefore, no way any opposition group or a combination of them can win.
In fact, the only problem NRM has is some of the selfish careerist NRM leaders who are only thinking of themselves and not the party or the country. As I said at Kololo, during the victory celebrations, there is no opposition in Uganda. Where you find the so-called “oppositionâ€, it is on account of the weaknesses of the local leaders of NRM. They are not in touch with the local interest groups: youth, peasants, churches, etc.; they promote unprincipled contradictions among the people; or they fail to defend the masses against the corruption of the local leaders. This trend of the masses of Uganda being united is, therefore, irreversible.
Opportunists like Besigye who praise Amin’s mistakes in West Nile, talk of “federo†in Buganda, talk of religious sectarianism in other parts of the country, support cattle-rustling in Karamoja, then “mourn†with the Itesot for the loss of their cattle on account of cattle-rustling, tell the people in Lango, Teso and Acholi that Museveni intends to steal their land and has already sold Lake Kyoga, etc., were confusing some sections of our people under only two circumstances: terrorism in the North and cattle-rustling by Karimojong killers on the one hand and the reliance on foreign funding for Uganda’s development on the other hand. These two phenomena gave opportunists chances to abuse the intelligence of our people. These two phenomena plus the weaknesses of our local leaders, including Resident District Commissioners (RDCs), allowed the opportunists to persist with these lies.
The Banyankore, however, say: “Enjiiri ezaire teriibwa mbwa†– ‘a warthog that has produced children cannot be eaten by dogs – the young warthogs will defend it.’ That phenomenon is already emerging in Uganda. You get a number of young NRM workers like the Hon Caroline Okao of Amolatar, Hon Mohammed Nsereko of Kampala Central, Hon Ronald Kibuule of Mukono, the youth groups that were providing the music at my rallies to entertain the people to the chagrin of the local leaders who bore the people by the crave to “introduce†themselves and shout meaningless slogans, Nina Mbabazi and her group of researchers and many others some of whom I introduced at our victory rally at Kololo. These young people are really thorough. They remind me of our young days in FRONASA, USARF, etc. They leave nothing to chance. They know the role of the media and challenge the mendacious opposition there, they know social programmes like the screening of women for cervical cancer, economic programmes like micro-finance to the malwa groups, etc.
Unfortunately, they are resented by the old guards in some cases because the latter think that the sharper insights of these young cadres are a criticism of the failures of the senior members. This is a wrong attitude. The senior members did their bit of, for instance, identifying with the NRM at a time the party was unpopular in some areas. That is good enough credit. Do not spoil that credit by resenting the young people who are adding value to the organization. With the value addition of these young people, the NRM is becoming formidable politically. I am also aware of the good work of some of the senior NRM leaders in different areas. You can easily see that through the cohesion of the NRM and the community in their respective areas.
3.The third factor why the NRM is becoming formidable politically is due to the socio-economic programmes of the NRM. You go to Kisoro, Zirobwe, Bundibugyo, Ibanda, Kapeeka-Semuto, Mubende, Fort-Portal, Kyenjonjo, Kyegyegwa, Dokolo, Lira, Pakwach, Nebbi, Arua, Kapchorwa, etc and you talk against the NRM, people will think you are out of your mind.
The reception I received at Kalerwe market on account of the new roads from Kasangati and the Northern by-pass as well as the water operated public toilets in the area was most pleasing. The new roads to these areas cannot permit the opportunists going round telling lies.
As we are going to implement our mega projects – the roads, the power projects, etc. – it will be difficult terrain for the opportunists to peddle lies against the NRM. We are going to implement NAADS programmes, UPE, USE, SACCOs, BPOs, correctly this time, without tolerating distortions or deviations by any public official.
The stealing of drugs in hospitals and health units is going to be eliminated. My 242 mega rallies in the whole of Uganda have not been in vain. They did not only win us votes but they were social research for me. I now know what the people want and cherish. Fortunately, I moved around in some of the rallies with Mrs. Namubiru Rwabushaija, the President of the Teachers Association so that she could hear what the people thought of the teachers and health workers.
The correctness of our strategy of balancing expenditure on wages of public servants on the one hand and socio-economic as well as infrastructure development on the other hand is being proven correct.
We are avoiding the mistake that has crippled many of the African countries where whatever little money that is available is consumed by the wages of the public servants and nothing remains for infrastructure and socio-economic programmes for the masses except the donor-funded efforts which are ridiculously inadequate. “Garya embibo gashekyera ekiteme, the Banyankore say. This means that the “unwise man cooks seeds and eats them when he is hungry and when it comes to the planting season, he has nothing to plant; he only smiles at the garden with the teeth that ate the seeds.†As we collect more taxes, the salaries of public servants will go up. However, we cannot forget the roads, the railway, electricity, UPE, USE, NAADS, SACCOs, etc. Uganda is going to become a middle-income country by 2016.
The Banyankore say: “Otarikumanya ngu bamutsigire, ati bandinzire†– the uninformed person thinks that co-travellers are waiting for him to start the journey together when, in fact, the other travellers are already far on their journey.
The opportunists did not know that the NRM is always the doer throughout the 40 years it has been active in Uganda’s politics. It has been the solver of our people’s problems. Even the Ugandans who did not know this now know it.
By defeating Kony and disarming the Karimojong, on top of its socio-economic and infrastructure programmes, the NRM is putting the final nails into the coffin of the opportunistic opposition groups. The Bible says: “We shall know them by their fruits.†That is certainly the opinion of the Ugandans. I thank you.
The writer is the President /NRM Chairman