How NRM village campaign structures delivered victory

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OPINION

By Tezira Jamwa

The unsung heroes, who are our grassroots leaders, were remembered this time by the National Resistance Movement (NRM) secretariat. They were brought on board to mobilise and canvas votes for the NRM presidential candidate, Yoweri Museveni, and all the flag-bearers across the country.

The chairperson himself had instructed the secretariat: “No task force this time; the party belongs to the people. Let’s go to the people.”

On October 13, last year, a training took place at the NRM electoral commission. The training, attended by over 500 people, targeted training new senior cadres and eminent personalities throughout Uganda. Notable among these senior cadres and eminent persons was former vice-president Specioza Wandira Kazibwe, and politicians: David Migereko, Justine Lumumba and others from all the regions of Uganda.

These facilitators were supposed to go back to their various areas and unpack the NRM manifesto. Leaders of each region were drawn from the senior cadres and eminent persons.

For instance, the Bukedi sub-region was led by the national NRM treasurer, Ambassador Barbara Nekesa Oundo, and Federation of Uganda Football Associations executive member Rogers Mulindwa. The Bukedi sub-region was divided into two mini sub-regions. Tororo district became a sub-region because of the Tororo county politics of district's demands. The Tororo sub-region was headed by NRM electoral commission chairperson Dr Tanga Odoi.

There were two main reasons for taking the campaigns to the parishes, where the 63 village/zonal leaders per village would congregate and listen to the special message from the NRM presidential candidate.

The first reason was the dropping percentage of the votes for Museveni. This was a big political concern for the presidential candidate himself and all politicians subscribing to the NRM.

In the 2021 general election, Museveni garnered 58.3% of the total valid votes compared to 74% of the total valid votes in the 1996 general election. This time, the party wanted to strategically win by a higher percentage. The second reason was that despite the fact that NRM is a mass party with clear and elaborate structures, it had failed to take advantage of them.

After thorough research by the NRM secretariat, it was discovered that the party was not doing well in percentages because of not targeting its voters using these structures.

I was deployed to mobilise and canvass for votes for President Museveni and all the NRM flag-bearers in the Tororo sub-region. Tororo district and Tororo County North make up the Tororo sub-region campaign area. I was sent to Tororo County North to canvass for votes for Museveni and NRM MP flag-bearer Nicholas Simon Owino. This constituency had been held by Forum for Democratic Change MP Geoffrey Ekanya, who had led that constituency for almost 30 years.

The NRM flag-bearer was a young, vibrant businessman who eventually won the elections.

The district executive committee members were requested to own the mobilisation exercise in their various districts, so they had to do the planning and zoning of the various parishes. The facilitators were supposed to liaise with district executive committee members forthe purposes of venue location.

The NRM village campaign structure comprised:

• Thirty members of the NRM branch level executive
• Five flag-bearers at the village level National Youth Council
• Five flag-bearers at the village level National Women’s Council
• Five flag-bearers at the village level National Persons with Disabilities Council
• Five flag-bearers at the village level National Elders Council
• Nine members of LC1 of NRM

As the facilitator of Tororo County North, it was easy to deny Ekanya victory because, for all those nearly 30 years, he had been telling the Wanainchi that he was the only one capable of delivering a district to the people of Tororo County North.

But when Mukuju, Mulanda districts and Tororo city were created last year on the orders of President Museveni, Ekanya’s political career was shattered. He lacked anything to convince the voters during his campaigns as they branded him a liar.

To unpack Museveni’s message and the Manifesto was an easy task. As an adult trainer of trainers, I used student-centreed approach of involving all voters to unpack the NRM theme, Protecting the Gains, by asking them a simple question: “What do you know about Museveni?”

They would respond thus: peace, security, stability, gender equality, government programmes like Social Assistance Grants for Empowerment and Parish Development Model.

The reason why the voters were able to unpack the gains by themselves was that they had seen the various government developments and benefited from these programmes.

As a result, voters were always enthusiastic about canvassing votes for Museveni and all the flag-bearers.

A reason why Ekanya lost miserably was that all his top managers and supporters crossed to NRM, surrendering all their FDC cards and even registers of the FDC members were handed over to the community leader, Nicholas Simon Owino, during the NRM rallies.

The strategy of getting back to the grassroots structures to canvass votes gave a resounding victory to President Museveni and the NRM flag-bearers in the polls.

The writer is a politician