Surviving A Founder: NRM’s Dark Fate After Museveni.

ELIAS BIRYABAREMA





Kampala--For all its seemingly convincing ubiquity and organisational power, there’s something perceptively phoney about the National Resistance Movement, NRM: an aura of some inexplicable oddity that the party just seems unable to shake off.

Yes, exteriorly, the NRM, currently in power, makes an impression of strength, institutional order and focus, observers say. But for any ruling party, it’s pretty easy to project that impression and NRM’s overwhelming presence might be of little help to anyone trying to weight its real worth. In fact its real test will come when it faces the challenge of surviving the political demise of the founding chairman, Mr. Yoweri Museveni.

Although the NRM is young and has a lot to do to transform itself into a functioning, robust and sustainable entity there’s little that has been achieved in the way of building the party’s internal capacity. There are so many basics that have eluded it thus far that make political observers fret about its ability to survive a change of government in Uganda.

All through the past elections and other party activities, the NRM has counted on Mr Museveni to mobilise all the requisite funds and there has not been any discernible effort on the part of the party leadership to develop lasting and institutionalised mechanisms of generating money to fund its spending needs. Plans to acquire some properties that could in future fund the organisation have badly foundered for the party’s lifetime to date and there isn’t any sign the party’s troubled finances might improve in the foreseeable future, foreshadowing a dark time when its current fundraiser-in-chief exits.


An August 27th analysis last year in Daily Monitor of the NRM’s ailments serves as a microcosm of the terrible fate that might strike this party in a post-Museveni Uganda. The story for instance quoted a source who claimed that the NRM’s landlord had threatened to eject it from its headquarters on No. 10 Kyadodo Road, after it had piled up rent arrears and repeatedly ratted on its promise to clear them—a deeply mortifying episode for a party projected by its Chairman as formidable. It doesn’t help matters that its equally financially struggling (but humbler) rival, FDC can afford its rent.

In fact the threat on the Headquarters was emblematic of a broader crisis, with nearly all of NRM’s district offices reportedly abandoned by broke officials or evicted for failure to pay rent. Several party officials who spoke anonymously in that story voiced intense frustration that Mr Museveni was personally influencing the activities, direction and policy of the party from his base at State House, circumventing all the party executives and organs.

It is these perpetual financial woes, unilateral decision making by the party chairman and unremitting internal turmoil that makes the NRM increasingly look fated to fade with the exit of President Museveni.

To the ex legislator, Mr Agrey Awori the NRM edifice is evidently tenuous, but it still “could survive the political demise of Mr Museveni depending on whether he grooms strong personalities.”

If that were to be the case though, Mr Museveni would have to radically shift his style of leadership and management of the party affairs so that institutional structures are allowed to function unhindered and charismatic party members offered an opportunity to shine. However, apparently there’s no sign Museveni is changing his style of governing the party and, instead, all telltales point to a hardening of his strong-man leadership approach and a weakening of NRM’s formal organs.

Mr Awori for example bemoaned the virtual isolation of the party vice chairman, Mr Al Haji Moses Kigongo and portrayed it as signalling a troubling trend.

A recent NRM convert, Mr Awori, too, said the escalating factionalism and nasty ego clashes amongst the party stalwarts was “unhealthy” and that “mafia allegations” could deal the party a deadly blow in the event of change of government. Another source within the NRM, suggested there was effectively no one running the party now since, “Museveni is busy with the presidency, Mbabazi (Party Secretary General) with political intelligence and Kigongo marginalised.”

A few party members are placing hope in half a dozen or so young NRM leaders who have recently shown a measure of circumspection and broad appeal to inspire genuine change in the party.

In December 2006, four zealous young NRM MPs: Frank Tumwebaze, Margaret Muhanga, David Bahati and Mr. Chris Baryomunsi, co-authored a paper that assailed Mr Museveni for failing to acknowledge the factors eroding his support, culminating in his all-time low 59% vote in the February 2006 presidential elections.

It was the first time NRM members without any influence or power, had directly criticised Mr Museveni who had hitherto enjoyed a de facto sacred cow status in the party. While immediately not of any profound significance, that incident was noted by analysts as capable of inspiring future determination on the part of other members who may feel dissatisfied by Mr Museveni’s uncompromising leadership to directly engage him.

In an interview, Mr. Baryomunsi stated that the NRM was currently “struggling very hard” to decouple the NRM from its chairman, Mr Museveni and also accepted it as imperative for the party to outgrow the culture of “historicals.” Still, for all the mounting crises undermining the NRM’s integrity, Baryomunsi believes it can float on in a Post-Museveni Uganda. The key, he asserted, will be “how we exercise internal democracy and elect leaders.”

THE history of political parties and their fortunes after their leaders have left power in Uganda appears to particularly bode ill for the NRM. By any comparison, the NRM has arguably not reached even half the might, mass appeal and financial capacity of two of the historical parties: Obote-founded Uganda Peoples Congress and the Democratic Party, DP at the peak of their power. And yet, over the last 20 years those parties have helplessly declined to sad relics of their past selves.

With its administrative structures particularly at the district and lower levels tenuous or non-existent, perpetually empty coffers, continuous wrangling in senior party ranks and rising dispassion in the party’s rank and file, an intransigent party chairman: the NRM organisation might as well write its epilogue soonest after Museveni’s end.