Prime
2021 will still be a two-horse race
Philip Matogo
As politicians throw their hats into the presidential ring, the Electoral Commission plays the role of Mad Hatter by nominating every Tom, Dick and Robert.
However, as these presidential aspirants half-jokingly declare their candidatures, Dr Kizza Besigye lies in wait as the Opposition’s perennial presidential frontrunner.
Once a whirlwind of a contender, Dr Besigye is today not as excitable as other opponents of President Museveni. For he knows that every election cycle which goes around always comes around to separating the men from the boys.
So, when the nomination dust settles, we are likely to see the crowded presidential field whittled down to a race between President Museveni and Dr Besigye.
All told, this two-horse race will proceed at full gallop in early January next year.
In the interim, we can voice our support for the other candidates as our conventional wisdom seemingly goes to seed.
But while doing so, we must bear in mind that we voters are rather reasoning than reasonable animals.
That is why we shall stump for everyone’s right to be president before deciding between forever candidate Dr Besigye and forever President Museveni, in the manner that American politics is divided between Republicans and Democrats.
This duality could be a symptom of our conservative need to leave well enough alone. To be sure, Ugandans are traditional believers in not rocking the boat and so we’ll turn cultural abstractions into institutional realties by choosing what we are used to.
By extension, President Museveni and Dr Besigye will again be fountainheads for voter apathy and nostalgia all wrapped in one gift that takes away our radical demands for change.
Apathy in the sense that the two of them are great men, but not particularly great Ugandans. Since both do not intend to mend a system strengthened where it’s broken. This fine mess began long before these two colossi bestrode our political stage, however.
On January 3, 1900, for instance, the three regents of Buganda---Apollo Kaggwa, Stanislaus Mugwanya and Zaakaria Kisingiri---wrote, in part, to the commissioner Harry Johnson: “Sir, we chiefs of the land request you give us one rupee out of every three rupees collected from each hut… it is not good for us to be poor, and people to laugh at those who call themselves friends of the Queen being short of money.”
Clearly, leadership was taken as a brass ring to both leader and led instead of as a ringing call to, well, leadership.
Nostalgia will set in amongst voters as Ugandans look to the past -- 1900 or 1986 -- as a period that bespoke a simpler era in Ugandan life. Yet the more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
For leadership (yesterday and today) is about money, power and status. And those who oppose this reality have usually been excluded from this three-way feast. As a result, they serve as flashpoints for pent-up feelings of rage born of poverty.
This is the underlying reality of a neo-patrimonial system opened up by mouths to be fed instead of fire-stopped by infernos in the bellies of patriots.
Hence each presidential aspirant lined up before our eyes is the promise of a future that we already inhabit. At a subconscious level, President Museveni and Dr Besigye have probably understood this and so ensure that the arc of change bends towards their singularly contemporary interests.
Being the most successful manipulators of our political age, they know Ugandans prefer such stability to mobility. And by implying this state of equilibrium, the two will run many times and scarcely exhaust the longevity of their political shelf lives.
Elections in Uganda are not about democracy, they are about filling the egos of “democrats” with a false sense of ownership. That way, we can get a brother, sister, father, mother, cousin or in-law into government in order to feel in charge.
Actually being in charge is not viewed as necessary, since we are a neo-colonial entity which the Harry Johnsons controlled and Boris Johnsons continue to control through indirect rule. And so our collaborating class of “leaders” cement their over-lordship or suzerainty by serving as patrons to us: their clients.
Indeed, the system is broken because our spirits were breakable to begin with. So candidates are campaigning as fractured records which continuously play to defeatist notions of nationhood. Anything less will derail a candidate’s midnight train to Georgia (read State House) by ensuring it winds up in Timbuktu.
Mr Matogo is content editor and writer with KQ Hub Africa
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