The 2011 win is already in the Movement’s bag
Jul 07, 2008
KARORO OKURUT<br><i>A literary and socio-political analyst</i><br><br>To date the National Resistance Movement (NRM) has an overwhelming majority of 215 directly elected Members of Parliament.
KARORO OKURUT
A literary and socio-political analyst
To date the National Resistance Movement (NRM) has an overwhelming majority of 215 directly elected Members of Parliament.
Out of the 40 independents, 18 are friendly to the NRM, leaving the opposition with a paltry 84 MPs – 25 percent. That means the NRM has 237 MPs and therefore effectively commands a whopping 75 percent of Parliament. As 2011 draws near (just two budgets to go), you hear some parties boasting about how they will sweep the NRM out of power. This will need what could no doubt be the biggest miracle since Holy Moses parted the Red Sea five or so millennia ago.
If at the last election the people of Uganda trusted themselves to the counsel of the NRM by voting overwhelmingly as evidenced by the above numbers in Parliament, it is unthinkable, nay, impossible, that anything will change so drastically in the remaining two years to make them lose confidence in the ruling party.
The NRM will retain power for the simple reason that all its programmes are geared towards people improvement and the NRM is constantly on the ground. And predictably too we shall see the opposition, deeply in love with playing the victim, up to the same tricks.
For example, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) had planned an election petition, long before the 2006 Presidential elections took place. They planted agents all over the place to gather alleged evidence that the election had not been clean. They seemed to have some kind of checklist of serious election offences, and were busy trying to find evidence for each one.
One of the hot issues was corrupting voters. So one chap comes to the NRM headquarters secretly and claims he wanted to quit FDC because he wasn’t being treated well. If the NRM could find him a job, he said, he would happily cross over.
He however attached one condition – give me an appointment letter first then I quit FDC. It turned out all he wanted was to flash the appointment letter as evidence in court that he was being bribed.
I think it was the 2001 elections when we thought we had seen everything called dramatic, only for some chap to show up with a shocker.
The fellow—I forget his name—went to some media, all wrapped in bandages and talking like he was breathing his last. In between sob-whimper-and-whines he narrated, with a considerable measure of difficulty that he had been beaten black and blue by the Presidential Guard Brigade (PGB). Some journalist got a brainwave and decided to unbandage him; only to find not one scratch! I suspect a few of such cases, perfected to exceptional quality of course, will show up again.
There will be those who will claim to have been injected with poison or some other such lethal substance by police, prison warders or some law enforcement officer.
As usual the Provocation Brigade will be doing its customary rounds all over the place, trying to tickle the security agencies into some kind of fight or scuffle that they can use to say they are being done in. They are like that proverbial wasp that wags its bottom on your face and dares you to hit it. And any touch on them, however legitimate will attract wide media coverage of the worst kind featuring the wildest insinuations and making statements to the foreign media and international community about how unfair the election is.
All these initiatives of their ‘Dirty Tricks Departments’ notwithstanding, there is no doubt we shall beat them hands down. Apart from their underhand trickery, the opposition features campaigns that are not issue-based. They are predictable and simply focused on personalities.
It is clear they have no agenda beyond a change of government – and an intelligent mind will be wondering what they would do in the unlikely event that they got into power. Would they be able to run the country that President Museveni has always described as hard to handle as sheep’s intestines?
While our friends in the opposition bicker about this or that government policy, we are not seeing them indulge in a critical thought process that covers every area of government by way of offering workable solutions. In their submissions and manifestos, sensitive areas like the Army, intelligence services, economy and social services are not getting intelligent analysis.
Moreover, the NRM does keep in touch with the masses all the time and has come up with programmes geared towards wealth creation – ‘bonna baggaggawale’ or prosperity for all. The world has moved away from poverty alleviation to wealth creation; so when people ask where the money is for bonna baggaggawale, the answer is simple: look at the initiatives that Government has embarked on.
The recent budget for example, is wildly pro-people; with the priority areas road and energy infrastructure, industrial development, human development plus security and governance all geared towards empowering the individual to excel, grow and produce in a manner exhaustive of their potential.
Key sectors like free primary and secondary education, health and affordable micro-finance have taken root downward and should soon bear fruit upward by way of prosperity for all. Every sustainable change has to start with the psyche; up there in the mind, so that people begin to believe in themselves. That is why the first thing the President has done and is still doing is to reawaken people to the reality that it is possible to get out of poverty.
Poverty is already a negative force. But when you begin sowing positive thought and talk of bonna baggaggawale, the concept of wealth creation begins to take root in people’s minds.
Those who say President Museveni and the NRM are the same as Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Zanu-PF should think again. Mugabe is playing chess with himself and brought his economy to a halt, effectively checkmating himself – which we are not doing.
A literary and socio-political analyst
To date the National Resistance Movement (NRM) has an overwhelming majority of 215 directly elected Members of Parliament.
Out of the 40 independents, 18 are friendly to the NRM, leaving the opposition with a paltry 84 MPs – 25 percent. That means the NRM has 237 MPs and therefore effectively commands a whopping 75 percent of Parliament. As 2011 draws near (just two budgets to go), you hear some parties boasting about how they will sweep the NRM out of power. This will need what could no doubt be the biggest miracle since Holy Moses parted the Red Sea five or so millennia ago.
If at the last election the people of Uganda trusted themselves to the counsel of the NRM by voting overwhelmingly as evidenced by the above numbers in Parliament, it is unthinkable, nay, impossible, that anything will change so drastically in the remaining two years to make them lose confidence in the ruling party.
The NRM will retain power for the simple reason that all its programmes are geared towards people improvement and the NRM is constantly on the ground. And predictably too we shall see the opposition, deeply in love with playing the victim, up to the same tricks.
For example, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) had planned an election petition, long before the 2006 Presidential elections took place. They planted agents all over the place to gather alleged evidence that the election had not been clean. They seemed to have some kind of checklist of serious election offences, and were busy trying to find evidence for each one.
One of the hot issues was corrupting voters. So one chap comes to the NRM headquarters secretly and claims he wanted to quit FDC because he wasn’t being treated well. If the NRM could find him a job, he said, he would happily cross over.
He however attached one condition – give me an appointment letter first then I quit FDC. It turned out all he wanted was to flash the appointment letter as evidence in court that he was being bribed.
I think it was the 2001 elections when we thought we had seen everything called dramatic, only for some chap to show up with a shocker.
The fellow—I forget his name—went to some media, all wrapped in bandages and talking like he was breathing his last. In between sob-whimper-and-whines he narrated, with a considerable measure of difficulty that he had been beaten black and blue by the Presidential Guard Brigade (PGB). Some journalist got a brainwave and decided to unbandage him; only to find not one scratch! I suspect a few of such cases, perfected to exceptional quality of course, will show up again.
There will be those who will claim to have been injected with poison or some other such lethal substance by police, prison warders or some law enforcement officer.
As usual the Provocation Brigade will be doing its customary rounds all over the place, trying to tickle the security agencies into some kind of fight or scuffle that they can use to say they are being done in. They are like that proverbial wasp that wags its bottom on your face and dares you to hit it. And any touch on them, however legitimate will attract wide media coverage of the worst kind featuring the wildest insinuations and making statements to the foreign media and international community about how unfair the election is.
All these initiatives of their ‘Dirty Tricks Departments’ notwithstanding, there is no doubt we shall beat them hands down. Apart from their underhand trickery, the opposition features campaigns that are not issue-based. They are predictable and simply focused on personalities.
It is clear they have no agenda beyond a change of government – and an intelligent mind will be wondering what they would do in the unlikely event that they got into power. Would they be able to run the country that President Museveni has always described as hard to handle as sheep’s intestines?
While our friends in the opposition bicker about this or that government policy, we are not seeing them indulge in a critical thought process that covers every area of government by way of offering workable solutions. In their submissions and manifestos, sensitive areas like the Army, intelligence services, economy and social services are not getting intelligent analysis.
Moreover, the NRM does keep in touch with the masses all the time and has come up with programmes geared towards wealth creation – ‘bonna baggaggawale’ or prosperity for all. The world has moved away from poverty alleviation to wealth creation; so when people ask where the money is for bonna baggaggawale, the answer is simple: look at the initiatives that Government has embarked on.
The recent budget for example, is wildly pro-people; with the priority areas road and energy infrastructure, industrial development, human development plus security and governance all geared towards empowering the individual to excel, grow and produce in a manner exhaustive of their potential.
Key sectors like free primary and secondary education, health and affordable micro-finance have taken root downward and should soon bear fruit upward by way of prosperity for all. Every sustainable change has to start with the psyche; up there in the mind, so that people begin to believe in themselves. That is why the first thing the President has done and is still doing is to reawaken people to the reality that it is possible to get out of poverty.
Poverty is already a negative force. But when you begin sowing positive thought and talk of bonna baggaggawale, the concept of wealth creation begins to take root in people’s minds.
Those who say President Museveni and the NRM are the same as Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Zanu-PF should think again. Mugabe is playing chess with himself and brought his economy to a halt, effectively checkmating himself – which we are not doing.