There is nothing new to NRM

trueBy Ofwono Opondo

Some pseudo-experts on NRM politics want the public to believe that President Yoweri Museveni is not ‘smart’ enough on his own, and has been relying on “very intelligent” people, overtime among them, Eriya Kategaya, Amanya Mushega, Kiiza (sic) Besigye, Bidandi Ssali, and most recently, Amama Mbabazi, without whom he and perhaps NRM cannot survive.

It is a fallacy that needs demystification because the NRM has withstood unprincipled internal maneuvering.

Way back in February 1994 after the Constituent Assembly (CA) elections had ended, a strong wave of distress hit the then NRM establishment when one of its most promising stars, James Wambogo Wapakhabulo lost to UPC’s George Masika, a former partisan Chief Justice under the second Milton Obote regime (1980-85). Wapakhabulo lost when he was tourism minister, and had previously held senior cabinet portfolios.

Apparently, unknown to then naïve NRM, the UPC rigging machinery had been a step ahead, and cheated Wapakhabulo by just 500 factious votes, and rejecting valid votes in favour of Wapakhabulo, who although went to court, by the time the election results were nullified, had been elected as chairperson to steer the CA for the next 18 months. 

Consequently, he did not go back to contest, leaving Masika to return as CA delegate for Mbale municipality. Other then senior NRM gurus, Kategaya, Mushega, Ruhakana Rugunda, Kahinda Otafire, Tom Butime, Bidandi Ssali, Kirunda Kivejinja, Augustine Ruzindana, and Amama Mbabazi, had comfortably, for the first time secured direct electoral seats. Senior NRA commanders Elly Tumwine, David Tinyefuza, Mugisha Muntu, Jim Muhwezi, Kiiza Besigye and Aronda Nyakairima were nominated by Museveni as army delegates.

Wapakhabulo’s defeat was a big puzzle to Museveni, and he sought opinion from the “historicals,” if he (Wapakhabulo) could chair the assembly, which they rejected, arguing that it was not prudent for an election loser to chair the CA. However, the real reason for the rejection was that the historicals had seen in his Mbale defeat, an opportunity to knock out early enough a presumed viable competitor among themselves who was not from the same western region, and Museveni knew it.

Museveni then ignored them and nominated Wapakhabulo alongside Francis Ayume, Justice Herbert Ntabgoba, Prof. Victoria Mwaka, and Rebecca Kadaga, from among whom the delegates then voted. Ntabgoga withdrew, leaving Wapakhabulo and Mwaka to easily sail through. During the CA, Wapakhabulo’s star shot through the roof, catapulting him into the uncontested choice for Speaker of the 6th Parliament, and  as the adage goes, the rest is history.

Kadaga who was Kamuli woman NRC member since 1989, had, during the CA election, shifted to a direct constituency, Buzaya county and was thrashed by Isaac Musumba, then a junior civil servant, leaving her to leak political wounds. During the CA and the subsequent years, until the 2001 elections, Kategaya, Bidandi and Mushega tried to cut the figure of king-makers. Towards the 2001 elections, there were footworks especially among NRM historicals to decamp, but many were not as brave and chickened out because the “young turks” had emerged and consolidated behind Museveni. 

Many of the historicals returned behind Museveni in the middle of the campaigns, but were already politically vulnerable because their space had been taken over, the reason Kategaya, Bidandi, Mushega and Rugunda did not stand in the 2006 parliament elections, as winning would have been difficult!

Consequently, to many of us who were operatives, it did not come as a surprise when in September as Museveni was launching the disarmament programme in Karamoja, the historicals, led by Bidandi, Kategaya, Mushega, Wapakhabulo, and Muntu among others, began to demand that Museveni either names a successor or paves the way for leadership change, preferably under a multiparty system.

While the ‘Bush’ historicals preferred Museveni anointing a successor because they believed it would be one of them, Bidandi was a lone but vocal voice demanding that they return to the old UPM where he had been the Secretary General. And having been deputy national campaign manager for the 1996 and 2001 elect-Museveni task forces, and taking advantage as the longest serving local government minister, Bidandi falsely believed that he had an edge against his rivals among Movement-leaning MPs, and the LC system whose elections he had supervised overtime, and therefore argued that Museveni should not name a successor, but rather the successor be elected by the delegates. Until he left the NRM, Bidandi naively believed the party’s consistent electoral support in Buganda and among Muslims depended on him. 

Therefore, the current rancour of some NRM leaders refusing to publicly and formally share the membership and voters’ register, attempts at financial manipulation and building structures parallel to the formal organs, yet there is no evidence that they are building the party itself, are not new, and will certainly be handled.

The writer is Government Spokesperson and Executive Director, Uganda Media Centre