Demystifying the just appointed People Power cordinators and what they stand for

By Michael Woira

We are being faced with too many problems in this world and sometimes I am forced to think that Politics and leadership is one of the lead troubles of us the Ugandan people and Africa in general.

In my opinion, society in general, but specifically political structures, work best in a hierarchical model - fewer and fewer people as you work your way up to the top where there's one person responsible.

 Personally I believe in a model of the political hierarchy where one leader is surrounded by "men of action", people who have proven their competence in a given sphere and have actual experience in an area of work i.e. not career politicians that are old fashioned and cannot offer any developmental kind of strategy or even politicians who just swing around others to get political mileage or even those who just aim at winning the favor of the electorates through sympathy.

The current model of politics in Uganda is that people come out of wherever they have been and immediately get involved in the politics of the country. Ugandans have seen a range of politicians from all spheres of life, the comedians, the kickboxers, the political businessmen and women, the stage performers, the known political commentators to mention but a few.

All those mentioned, the country has for long suffered from populism ever since the custodian of political failures came back to Uganda from South Africa where he had hidden for some good time, no definition of populism will fully describe all populists. That's because populism is a very thin ideology in that it only speaks to a very small part of a political arrangement.

This kind of strategy by many of Uganda's opposition members-only calls for kicking out the political establishment in power as they always say, but it doesn't specify what should replace it. So any well-thinking human being will easily know that is usually paired with "thicker" left- or right-wing ideologies like socialism or nationalism which sometimes don't work well.

We have identified ourselves with politicians who have for long wanted to bring this kind of populism to the masses and many more upcoming politicians are using the same populism ideology and what everyone should know is that Populists are dividers, not uniters, this is very evident in the way these populists have been politically acting , we first saw the very first war in the Ugandan parliament emanating from our opposition figures who always want to be seen on television sets in people's sitting rooms and all media outlets, they believe that  disobeying lawful orders and abiding by  democratic principles can't  work out for them in achieving political mileage.

They have split the society into two homogenous and antagonistic groups: the pure people on the one end and the activist's elite on the other, and you hear them always saying that they're guided by the will of the people. Who of their electorates have ever sent them to parliament to shout, tie red ribbons on their heads and hands, wear red and make the whole parliament look like a boxing ring, all this is just populism and arrivalism.

Stylistically, populists often use short, simple slogans (people power) and direct language( fighting for the local people), and engage in inhuman, undemocratic violent behaviors, which makes them appear like the real people yet indeed they are working on directives from foreign powers or else just acting radical to justify themselves politically while accounting for the funding that they receive.

In fact Populism has almost never been a respectable word, they are the product of failed political parties and people with no proper selling manifestos and this every Ugandan knows that all the politicians switching political loyalty every day are those who have at many times failed to get political offices or those that want to win political offices by getting the sympathy of the people.

There are a number of people in the opposition that really require medals for being failures because of the many times that they have contested but failed to achieve their goals. For instance, some Doctor has contested several times but fellow Ugandans have always been denying him the chance to rule because they think FDC as a party has nothing to offer. It's this very party that started politics of populism in the country years ago when they started undemocratic campaigns like walk to work, Black Monday, Bloody Thursdays, No work on Thursday and many other failed campaigns. He came up with so many populists' campaigns that never yielded anything and he ranks as the number one political failure in the country.

Then following him came Norbert Mao, this one has been on the scene for long from days back when he was chairperson Gulu district but later thought he was beyond being LC5 and that's when he started his career as a political failure, he left Gulu and joined national politics heading his outgrown Democratic party where he is now a punching bag for the rest of the DP members in Buganda, he has been fought by his own party, he even wanted to contest in his own district but later found out he wasn't a Ugandan citizen because he never had a national I.D so that failed him showing the real failure in him. This very intelligent politician has now resorted to being a handbag and security guard to all populist politicians in the country.

Then there is this group that was just declared yesterday in Magere where the likes of Winnie Kizza, Allan Ssewanyana, Bigirwa, Ssegona, Mpuuga and Asuman Basalirwa who are now under the populist movement of people power, its good and I would like to congratulate them for being appointed as coordinators but I am not sure of what they are going to coordinate because many of them belong to some authentic registered parties and it was also a surprise to see a full president of a party reduced to just a coordinator

Fellow Ugandans, rather than sit idly by and notice something is awry and needs to be done about this populism politics, we need to face the music and take action as our ancestors did. We need to use our anger, raw emotion and utter hatred for these people that are letting us down with their populism that is generating for them and their families' incomes from abroad and us the people they confuse end up in prisons, hospitals and to death beds.

The writer works with Uganda Media Centre