Opposition's altercations won't dampen Museveni's favourable polls

By Henry Mayega

The USAID-funded survey on public opinion of Ugandans and whose results were released by the International Republican Institute (IRI), should be an eye opener to our venerated opposition.

The survey looked at the direction the country is taking, trust in our public leaders, courts of law, electoral commission reforms, women president, the fight against corruption as well as the unemployment.

President Yoweri Museveni was resoundingly acknowledged by 80% as personally responsible for the right direction the country is taking, confirming the saying that numbers do not lie.

His greatest achievement for which Ugandans chiefly honour him – Yoweri Museveni, has been the restoration of peace, security of person and property and stability all of which had eluded us for long.

When he took over in 1986, we as a country, walked in the shadows of a pariah state due to excesses of the Idi Amin regime of the 1970s, the civil wars of the early 1980s, uncharitable rebellions; UPDA, FUNA, LRA, Lakwena’s “Holy Spirit Movement”, FOBA, ADF, Kirimutu’s group, UPA, NALU etc. leaving an indelible blight on our country.

The paragon of our times – Yoweri Museveni has obliterated all these uncharitable groups.  Yet he wrought this success without any surrender of our vital interest – national sovereignty, by strength not weakness.

Ugandans recall the pressure which was heaped on the President and his administration to scale down spending on defense by some infamous development partners; he stayed the course, remained resolute and defended our country to the hilt.  He was clear about what was negotiable and firm about what could not.

Through the establishment of peace, security and stability the President has connected well with Uganda’s voters.

On the other hand, there has been a stubbornly persistent disconnect between the venerable opposition and Uganda’s voters – there are not enough people who trust them to run the country; people have a visceral dislike for those spewing out political activism that boarders on insecurity.

Kiiza Besigye’s “walk to work” lunacy rubbed Ugandans the wrong way, some members of the FDC inclusive.  Matters were not helped when Elias Lukwago joined Besigye’s bandwagon in an attempt to render Kiseka Market a no go area.

Back to the survey, the 69% of Uganda’s electorate who said the country is headed in the right direction are a representation of President Yoweri Museveni’s core vote which is bolstered by, on the one hand, NRM’s strong fighting spirit and on the other a patch of egregiously inept opposition.

We have for sure, seen where the President found the country in 1986 and where we are.  The opposition and their cousins, clothed as civil society have for years not read the national mood from a safe vantage point because their sense of political judgement is blurred by their boisterous behaviour.

What should ring a louder bell in the ears of this administration’s political foes is Yoweri Museveni’s endorsement by our voters by 80% for taking the country in the right direction.

Uganda’s voters have appreciated the many achievements so far registered in the areas of, but not limited to; health (where the Yoweri Museveni administration has constructed health centre IIs, IIIs and IVs, hospitals and renovated existing ones and through its immunisation programmes kicked out stubborn diseases like polio), education (where the UPE, USE, Loan Scheme for university students, construction of new schools at sub county level and burgeoning of university numbers have rebounded this sector), transport infrastructure (where this administration has; tarmacadamised more roads than all previous Governments, including the colonial regimes combined, commissioned new ferries, built or rehabilitated ports and there are plans to rejuvenate the existing railway system to standard gauge), astronomical growth of ICT use, decentralisation.

Fair and square, the opposition may cloud the picture but the contest between NRM’s Yoweri Museveni and any candidate(s) selected by the opposition is stable and immune to the wild swings of the media weather vane.

The polls so far, the IRI one included, have been consistent; Yoweri Museveni – a man with personal gifts of charm, intellect, steadiness of nerve, capacity to decide, hard assets of leadership simplicity rarest capacity to illuminate ideas by the grace of his personality and clarity of speech – has largely ignored the convenience of pretending that the frenzied cycle expressed by opposition leaning and rolling television news and accelerated by twitters or Facebookers feeds directly into the oppositions popularity.

These elitist channels of communication have not and will not change the polls in favour of NRM’s foes.  The opposition is probably light years away from understanding why Yoweri Museveni is as popular as ever – he struck a cord with the Ugandan voters that nobody can simply wish away.

The credibility of the USAID sponsored survey cannot be contested by sanity.  The IRI which released the survey results cannot be disputed either in terms of repute.  The few folks from the altercating opposition who, like Miria Matembe, Beti Kamya, Mathias Nsubuga contested the poll are part of those suffering from the perennial disconnect with the Ugandan voter.

“One of them contested the survey, “for not limiting it to educated people since many of the questions were of technical nature”.

For example, what is so technical about asking my mother, a village dweller, whether she would vote for a woman president?  Secondly surveys are one scientific way of gauging peoples’ opinions on any contentious matter and they must, for them to be credible, cut across age, gender, dwellings, education levels etc. when applied.

Mathias Nsubuga from the DP was most pathetic when he poignantly said the country cannot be headed in the right direction when the judiciary is not independent, level of corruption is so high … and people’s rights are violated.  I hope Nsubuga lives in Uganda; otherwise he spoke a language from the mars.  His were unresearched altercations.

Of course via a cautionary impulse the President and the NRM cannot afford the luxury of complacency due to these polls’ rosy estimates and predictions.

It is time to head to the drawing board and evaluate the tools so far used to combat policy lapses where the NRM administration has recessed, if any, through thorough going, skepticism for carelessly constructed policy scenarios, being suspicious of reckless sloganeering, avoidance yes men and women, easy answers, rosy forecasts and overblown estimates.

Undoubtedly, Yoweri Museveni’s greatest achievement has been to turn the gaze of Ugandans towards a peaceful country and to infuse his pragmatic development programmes with the radiant light of tolerance, idealism and purpose.

The opposition and their cousins, a section of civil society, have been less civilizing and they need to operate differently to meet the twin challenges of changing public expectations and needs and they won’t do that.

While some like Zac Niringiye are still stuck in the same rut of a government of national unity via negotiations and Yoweri Museveni’s peaceful exit, as if we have had a catastrophe, majority Ugandans say the country is headed in the right direction.

The writer is a special NRM mobiliser