Why Museveni is leading a moribund regime

There has long been unsettling talk of a mafia political group that runs the show, often in the shadows, but we also know that no one who threatens Mr Museveni’s power can gain and retain power and influence as to trump the ssabalwanyi himself.  It has been well-established that anyone acting either as a private entrepreneur or holding an official position who grows too powerful in ways remotely seen as a threat to chief-ruler has always been swiftly cut to size often in incredibly spectacular fashion.  

Ask Gen Kale Kayihura, the erstwhile hugely powerful Inspector General of Police who, at the peak of his powers, was considered by far the second most powerful person in Uganda. 

His fall, or at least the manner it unfolded, that many of us never anticipated was arguably the most epic lesson in the palace politics of the current regime of rule in Uganda.  

Kayihura had amassed so much power precisely by working so hard to keep his boss in power, and that he could fall so disgracefully just underscored the poisoned chalice of state power, especially under the fraught circumstances of a country like ours. 

Yet for all his mastery of power intrigue and uncanny ability to juggle a very complex socio-political environment to be able to rule Uganda for now close to four decades uninterrupted, there is no doubt that Museveni is currently presiding over a hopeless and pathetic system of rule. 

Part of the issue is that the chickens have come home to roost, as it were. The embrace of the neoliberal received wisdom of the magic of free markets that resulted in rolling back aspects of the old state system and dismantling business activities of government-owned entities provided some short-term benefits but simultaneously set up Uganda for long-term disaster. 

Uganda’s neoliberal state and economy that Museveni presides over today is highly transactional and costly to him both financially and politically.

Financially, he has to pay a lot to appease all sorts of competing interests. Politically, he can’t crack the whip on actors both in government and the private sector that are engaged in personal profiteering at the expense of the public good.

Little wonder that the President writes letters (and increasingly resorts to the app X, formerly Twitter) lamenting about government technocrats and other officials who flatly ignore his directives! Endemic official corruption in Uganda today is in a league of its own.

In privatised system of political mafia groups, godfathers and patrons that run the show, officialdom is damned. People holding public offices are not subject to the rules of government, rather they act as free agents knowing that the source of their power is with some mafia-actor, godfather or power patron who is the ultimate guarantor.  

It doesn’t come as a surprise, therefore, that presidential directives, from a powerful and ordinarily feared president, are patently trashed by mid-level or even low-level government officials.

The irony of power in the context and circumstances of Museveni’s Uganda is that we have a seemingly powerful, imperial president who is simultaneously weak and vulnerable.

He has enormous power, in some instances wields uncontested authority, but he also runs up against relatively small people who can defy orders, get away with it because there are no universal rules and standards governing everyone. 

The system of rewards and punishment is not uniform and systematic, rather it is capricious and captured. This is the case even in the criminal affairs department of police and the arm of the state charged with prosecuting crime. Here, one’s connections, who they know or which part of the country they are from pretty much determines what the police and the prosecutorial office do or do not. 

It is a classic failure in state reform and reconstruction under Mr Museveni that today we lack the independent state capacity necessary for handling a very crucial aspect of society: crime.

The decay and dysfunction in the Uganda Police Force happened most acutely at the behest of Kale Kayihura during his 13-year reign at the helm.  Without a competent and professional police force, a society cannot have order and stability.

Worse, in a country like ours where both private and public individuals flout rules and laws without sanction because they can count on godparents and patrons, it is impossible to have a functional government.

It is where we are now. It will be a herculean task turning around things anytime in the future, as and when the current rulers are out of the equation.

Moses Khisa, [email protected]

Majority Report