…Museveni has increasingly become a drag on the ability of the country to move to the next state of consolidation. He has stabilised the political dispensation, sustained growth, tamed the army, facilitated the growth of a large and diversified private sector, a large and educated middle class and thereby laid the structural foundations for transformation. Yet his politics has remained unchanged in the face of this structural change, largely pandering to old social forces and unable to bring the new ones to the centre of his politics.
The political crisis in Uganda is therefore a product of the tension between an emerging new society and the prevailing political institutions and practices. If Museveni has successfully modernised Uganda, his biggest failure has been inability to modernise his politics.
That is Andrew Mwenda writing in the East African this week on how Museveni’s success is bringing him down. I largely agree with his analysis, but I think the role of those surrounding the president has been somewhat underplayed.
There has been a lot of hoohahing about the spilling of beans by the likes of John Nagenda, among many others, courtesy of Wikileaks. I personally enjoyed the final paragraph of Nagenda’s Saturday column (I can’t seem to find it on the New Vision website, which could use a redesign):
When I recall the whiskey-fuelled nights with various Ambassadors, Good God I shudder to imagine when and how I will be leaked!
All of this should tell us that many would-be advisors of the President are for whatever reason unwilling or unable to be frank with Museveni. Management of information to and from government, and the presidency in particular, is riddled with the same corruption and incompetence as is pervasive elsewhere. Who is the winner in this situation?
Perhaps Museveni’s success, as Andrew notes, is in many ways a major contributor to his demise. But many of those who surround him haven’t helped him “modernize his politics” either.
Melina Raquel Platas 