‘Museveni end will be bad’

Why clientelism, coercion, social control will fail

COVER STORY | JOSEPH WERE | “One way or the other, his rule will end.” That is the laconic conclusion about President Yoweri Museveni’s long reign made by Moses Khisa; the Ugandan-born professor of political science at North Carolina State University, USA.

“The end of Museveni’s rule will likely proceed violently or spark violent confrontations,” he says, and adds: “Already there have been flashes of fissures.”

Prof. Khisa makes the assertions in an essay entitled ‘Between change and continuity in the ruling coalition’ which assesses the likely conclusion of President Museveni’s long rule.

His essay is one of 11 essays by 13 scholars in a new book titled ‘Autocratisation in contemporary Uganda: Clientelism, Coercion and Social Control’ that Khisa edited. Khisa warns that with longevity, almost always, “the end or the immediate aftermath is dire and disastrous.”

In a different essay in the book, Professor Emeritus of Governance, Nelson Kasfir, first describes how – to hold power for such a long period – Museveni has developed “a certain finesse in the practice of centralised political clientelism.”

He, then, delves into the conundrum Museveni faces for depending on clientelism. He must buy the loyalty of cadres, appoint them and relatives to offices and protect them. He must violate laws, give kick-backs to amass resources to feed more cadres. Then he must also punish the disloyal, those who violate bargains or reveal illegal deals.

For this, he must manage complex hierarchies of clients and keep feeding them or else they rebel. But feeding the clients only, angers the public who receive nothing and sense that their lives are not improving. To quell the public anger, Museveni must keep expanding the “eating” in a web of prebendalism. But this angers even more people.

Prof. Kasfir, concludes that all this complex activity renders centralised political clientelism to be unstable. “Because clientelism is based on years of personal cultivation of multiple informal and direct relations, it cannot be transferred. Any successor, even his son Muhoozi Kainerugaba or his brother, Salim Saleh, would have to build a new one.”

The dark and gloomy mood of the book might surprise hardcore Musevenists considering that its hardcover is adorned by a bright sunny yellow, quite similar to the official colour of Museveni’s ruling NRM party. And the book is not about Museveni’s inescapable demise. It is a discussion about autocratisation – the gradual decline of democratic traits in already authoritarian situations.

Prof. Khisa kicks off the discussion with an engaging introduction which confirms that for the scholars, the 38 years of Museveni rule so far have been a failure when judged against the normative standard of what a democratic Uganda ought to be.

That is to be expected from a group schooled in the virtues of western democracy. But this is not just another case of political scientists assessing what is happening in Uganda versus what ought to be. For this group, it not a question of whether Ugandans would be in a better place today if its democracy were not as denuded as it is; it is that they want to show how it got bad.

The book is premised on what Khisa says are two empirical puzzles: the resilience of President Yoweri Museveni’s rule and the deepening of the personalistic, autocratic system it has spawned.

Why and how has Museveni’s dual-accomplishment of resilient and personalistic rule been actualised? That is the main query explored by 13 scholars. The academics choose to study Uganda possibly because they thought they could contribute to a solution to the problem.

“The bulk of uncertainty surrounding Uganda’s politics today emanates from questions about how and when Museveni will leave power and whether the country will forge a stable future or descend into instability,” writes Khisa.

“Museveni’s death while in office is more likely,” writes Kasfir. “To avert descent into bloody violence, those commanding the security forces will have to exercise restraint and strike consensus,” write Khisa and Prof. Sabastiano Rwengabo.

Although most of the writers either live abroad or are non-Ugandan, they all have scholarly connection to the country. The Ugandan-born co-contributors; Frederick Golooba-Mutebi, Mesharch w. Katusiimeh, Moses Khisa, Tabitha Mulyampiti, Andrew Mwenda and Sabastiano Rwengabo are distinguished political scientists locally and internationally.

Among the non-Ugandan contributors, Prof. Rebecca Tapscot, has written a book titled ‘Arbitrary states: Social Control and modern authoritarianism in Museveni’s Uganda.’ Anders Sjogren has written a book titled ‘Between militarism and technocratic governance: state formation in contemporary Uganda,’ while Prof. Nelson Kasfir has published widely on Uganda over the last 50 years and Prof. Roger Tangri taught at Makerere University for three years and in eight other African countries.

Their stated objective is to understand the growth and endurance of what they describe as “Uganda’s autocratic system of rule under a single ruler, its causes, dimensions, and implications.”

Ugandans would be interested to know that, for example, Museveni’s tactics of rewarding loyal cadres and buying, dividing, or punishing opposition politicians at election time is not unique to him. As Prof. Anders Sjogren explains in the essay titled ‘Autocratisation by elections’ these schemes have been documented and researched in other places, including Eastern Europe. Equally, many who have wondered at Museveni’s unpredictability will notice from Prof. Rebecca Tapscott’s essay titled ‘Institutionalised arbitrariness as autocratic adaptability’ that fostering an unstable political environment is, in fact, a widely used tactic of autocrats.

But in cases where necessary empirical data is lacking; which is often, the scholars conclusions appear based more on assumptions, theories, or experiential-deductions.

Major initial reaction to the book could, therefore, be that it is just another set of political theories which, in typical political science style, would be based on a desirable ideal – democratic governance in this case. It is interesting, however, that this book not only treats Museveni’s political longevity as a problem but the writers additionally attempt to suggest worst outcome scenarios to its end.

Some of the writers also set out to develop political theories on autocratisation that they hope can be useful beyond Uganda. They point at a gap in knowledge regarding the theme of autocratisation or re-autocratisation and backsliding on the African continent compared to the trend of such scholarship in other parts of the world.

The hard and soft Museveni

Many of the essays choose the often trodden path of being awe-struck by Museveni’s ability to hold on to power for almost 40 years in a country where previous presidents were sworn-in in the morning and over-thrown by nightfall. For this group of thinkers, Gen. Museveni acquires an aura of invincibility and is accorded imaginary super powers. It is a laughable claim. Yet some of these distinguished academics accord Museveni “a larger than life presence.”

“Today, Museveni has firmly clasped Uganda in a way no previous ruler has managed and to a magnitude far surpassing many of his continental contemporaries and peers,” writes Prof. Khisa, “Why and how this has happened remains intriguing and puzzling.”

Khisa’s introductory awe is followed by each professor grabbing the elephant of Museveni’s longevity using the tools of their specific academic orientation in 11 different essays. Sometimes two professors join hands to wrestle the beast. All essays base on different theoretical and comparative overviews that inevitably draw on a large body of literature to examine internal and external influences.

Khisa, for example, comes up with a new theory he calls “autocratic adaptation and resilience” which captures Museveni’s ability to adapt to changing circumstances, with new tactics, pragmatism, and being hard and soft. Khisa argues that his theory is informed by happenings in Uganda but is situated in a broader comparative frame.

Some people would argue against Khisa’s theory, which mirrors the general perception in the book, that Museveni has singly directed every facet of political activity in Uganda over the last 38 years. Some would argue that it is not possible, even for a political super human like Museveni, to direct each and every political happening in a country. Many people would say there are possibly other systemic factors, people, and events at the local and international level that have enabled Museveni to entrench himself, stifle dissent, and cling on to power. Some could argue, for example, that Museveni’s longevity is a result of local constructs, societal dynamics, and global political context rather than the foxy calculations of a cunning politician.

The writers acknowledge these reservations.

“What has transpired in Uganda over the past four decades is not strictly reducible to Museveni,” Khisa and Sabastiano Rwengabo write in the conclusion, “Never the less he has been the single most important actor.”

In reality, the 11 essays in the book either directly or indirectly describe a paradox and seek to unravel it. That is why it is possible to read the essays in at least three or more ways.

A first read could see it as a book written by western-trained social-scientists with a common world view. In this way, the reader would not be surprised by their dogmatic pursuit of the democratic ideal. This also means that we must view Museveni’s longevity as anti-democratic and, therefore, undesirable. This is dismissive of the stability Museveni’s longevity has created for positive things to happen in Uganda.

The scholars base on Museveni’s action to deduce his motives. What if they sought to understand Museveni’s motives first; would that alter their perception of his actions? Why has Museveni striven to stay in power?

Museveni’s militarism

A second look could also shun any ascription of democratic attributes to Museveni. Instead, Museveni could be seen for the military ruler he really is. After all, Museveni is not a democrat who dons military camouflage when it suits him but a military ruler who wears democratic camouflage. Understanding that would yield a better title for the book. Instead of ‘Autocratisation in contemporary Uganda: Clientelism, Coercion and Social Control,’ the correct title would be ‘Militarism in contemporary Uganda: Clientelism, Coercion and Social Control.’

The scholars appear cognisant of how much militarism matters for regimes that capture power forcefully. Khisa writes that keeping power necessarily requires maintaining a firm grip on the coercive apparatus and concludes that “the military is the primary gatekeeper.” “Museveni’s ultimate primary source of power is the bullet, not the ballot,” he writes.

Another professor, Ugandan-born Gerald Bareebe of York University in Canada, makes the same point in his essay entitled “The military as an instrument of regime survival.”

He delves deep into how Museveni has ensured that military operations and procedures gyrate around his “familial relations and close family ties” and how he uses the military to beat both opposition politicians and his ruling party into line, and ensure that no single military officer or group acquires sufficient political power to challenge his authority.

Prof. Bareebe concludes that the UPDF has had to remain highly partisan and personalised to safeguard the survival of President Museveni’s regime. “To survive long in power, autocratic leaders require loyal security organisations that are willing to employ violence against regime opponents,” he writes.

Bareebe argues that Museveni has used corruption, ethnicisation, and nepotism to manage the army.

He writes: “While the military in Uganda does not enjoy high salaries and attendant benefits, top army officers are nonetheless allowed to gain wealth through corruption and deal-making.” He says, in turn, they feel compelled to support the regime.

Bad ending for Museveni

A third reading of the book could focus on the global anti-democratic context in which it has been published. Such a reading would acknowledge that reactions could have been different if it had been written in the early 1990s when democratic governance systems were in ascendance after the defeat of communism.

Democracy still holds its luster today, but other systems of governance – including hotchpotch hybrids as employed by Museveni and other military, non-democratic leaders are gaining credence. In such contexts, it is not difficult to find voices that dismiss the democratic ideals of the book in favour of Museveni’s militaristic longevity.

If we assume the academics that wrote these 11 essays were cognizant of the declining appeal of the democratic ideal, we must ask why they persisted down the path. Our belief is that this line of inquiry exposes the real purpose of this book; warning of the looming perilous end.

Although the authors claim to interrogate how autocratisation emerges, their actual agenda appears to sound a clarion call on the danger that lies ahead for Uganda when Museveni’s long reign inevitably ends. Such a reading is appealing because, whereas the pursuit of the democratic ideal is contestable, the precision of their grim prediction is indisputable.

Readers will agree with Prof. Khisa when he writes of “tempestuous times in Uganda politics and society” and asserts that that the country “sits at a particularly precarious intersection of state dysfunction and social tension.”