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It is unfortunate, there is now a new culture of politics that no longer offers service but offers employment for self-seekers and is highly monetized. The voters are also to blame. We should remember that NRM is fused to the State. It freely draws money from the State and easily accesses State resources and services.
NRM covertly diverts budgetary allocations meant for classified security purposes to its use. The cost of the NRM elections to the taxpayers is enormous. There is abuse and misuse of the security forces, especially the UPDF. In the NRM primaries soldiers openly inflicted violence on the citizens under command from their commanders.
The army’s involvement in partisan politics is a sign to worry. A soldier remains a soldier even after retiring. A soldier should not be allowed to join politics until they have gotten used to civilian life after 5 years. Politics is divisive.
Uganda is progressively rewinding the clock to the times of a military government. Retired soldiers are rebranding themselves as politicians because they have run short of money and as such we are steadily heading for a military takeover and I’m convinced this is in the pipeline.
We are likely to experience this hiccup any time unless Ugandans wake up. A military government will not recognise political parties because some people who are likely to cheer such a government should take note of this.
NRM leadership has been good at manipulating the legal system to enable them to tamper with the Constitution to allow the continued stay in power of President Museveni. With many changes to the Constitution, this has only enabled a flawed transition, a transition that will never come.
Uganda’s leadership tricked the international community into believing that they had agreed to undertake democratic reforms when they intended to access donor assistance from the Western powers.
It was about harboring a hidden agenda to manipulate the donors which they succeeded. Initially, the donors had emphasized economic reforms but instead added political reforms as a condition to release aid or access donor money. This forced the NRM leadership to call for a referendum and mobilized the citizens to vote against its own NRM’s all-inclusive system to a multiparty exclusive system to access donor money.
Unfortunately, since then, Uganda has flouted implementing democratic reforms by amending the Constitution many times and creating proxy political parties, harassing the opposition, and making it a routine to hold sham elections to appease the donor community.
In this pseudo democratic dispensation, many undemocratic practices have evolved. One of them that strikes is Uganda’s Parliament has lost its independence and the legislators especially those in the NRM, have lost their independent free-thinking minds because the doctrine of separation of powers has been eroded and diminished.
The NRM Caucus has taken over the role of Parliament making Parliament become an ‘arm’ of the NRM Caucus. This has made NRM legislators become inept and compromised thus losing their ability to be independent-minded and free-thinking.
This has made the legislators abandon the duty of serving their voters and instead have shifted to serving the interests of the Executive. This has caused a disconnect between the electorate and the legislators and this has become the biggest NRM weakness. As a result, many MPs will lose in the coming general elections, making the elections a mockery of democracy.
A political Party is an institution or organisation that teaches us more about how to manage society because political situations keep on changing year after year. It is like a school where we can learn a lot. Unfortunately, the leaders and managers in NRM have failed to learn from past mistakes thus making them bad managers and performers.
So it is upon leaders to learn to analyze and make critical analysis in the interest of charting a way forward. Leaders must understand that it can’t be usual to rely on manipulation, violence, and patronage. Things have changed, and people are now more enlightened.
As a cautionary measure, NRM has to tighten its net of sieving leaders. One can’t cross from one Party and immediately take up a leadership position. Recommend that the tested people and newcomers should wait for at least 10 years. Avoid rushing with the unknown newcomers to avoid prejudicing old members.
Self-seekers have infiltrated NRM and have spoiled the broth. NRM will never be the same again after these primaries because the spirit of trust is no more. The element of corruption has eaten the Party.
Mugoya Paul Polly, concerned citizen.
DISCLAIMER: The views in this story are for the writer. They don’t represent Ultimate News or it’s affiliates.
