The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Looking ahead
What, then, will Museveni do next?
Fierce urban opposition didn’t prevent him from claiming a “large margin” of victory. After all, over three quarters of Uganda’s population still live in rural areas, and Museveni has always dominated rural Uganda.
Given this, it is possible that he could just abandon efforts to win urban support, instead adopting a strategy of containment towards Bobi Wine and his urban followers.
There are, however, at least two good reasons to think this unlikely.
The first is Uganda’s extreme urbanisation trajectory. The problem of urban opposition, if ignored, will only grow. The balance of voters is shifting away from Museveni, and he knows it.
The second is that abandoning cities to the opposition will mean maintaining very high levels of urban militarisation and repression, especially since Bobi Wine (now released) will surely try to continue mobilising his base.
This level of ongoing brutality is unlikely to be what the regime wants. Museveni likes to show people who is boss in public, viciously and periodically; but not continuously. His relationship with Western donors is still valued, and full-blown military rule is not a good option.
He might try to offer something new to city dwellers – such as major transport and housing projects or industrial jobs.
But for reasons relating to land tenure, corruption and the city’s politics, Kampala is a notoriously difficult context in which to deliver these kinds of projects. That’s why the regime has always fallen back on informal favours and populist gestures. Evidently these are no longer sufficient to stop urban opposition mounting.
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I think it is not true that it is only the Urban youths that Mr. Museveni Tibuhaburwa has failed to win over to his NRM. This is because if not all, the urban youths hail from rural setting, and therefore have village peers who look up to them for social, economic, political information and/or development in the country.
The urban youth who erk a living in the urban setting throughout the country always send part of their earning to support their village/rural folks; therefore have strong Social, economic and political opinion influence on the rural folks.
In other words, Mr. Museveni’s longevity in office/power is not because of his ideological popularity and/or democratic credential with the rural folks, but his vicious war mongering, corrupt, dictatorial and tyrannical practices.
E.g., after the bloody 18th and 19th November massacre (54 dead and hundreds injured and imprisoned incommunicado); with straight faces Gen Tibuhaburwa and religious leader assembled in State House for a Thanks Giving Prayer!