A tale of two presidents, two nations and two revolutions

This strategy of rule in Rwanda baffles me. It dis-empowers Kagame. He does not get elites supplicating at his feet for help to save a life of a loved one as we saw with Brig. Noble Mayombo in Uganda. His investment in effective and efficient delivery of healthcare does not make political sense because it makes him lose control over people’s lives. If you build a good public healthcare system, you cannot block your enemies from using it. That is not politically attractive because you lose ability to exercise discretion selectively to reward your supporters and penalise your enemies.

In societies where elites lack autonomous sources of income outside of state patronage, the best way to build political loyalty is to make them dependant on the ‘big man.’ Under such circumstances, it pays to have dysfunctional public goods and services. Because then, you can selectively decide who to give an air ticket for his wife’s treatment in Germany, who to lend a presidential jet for evacuation in case of a medical emergency, whose children get State House scholarships to study abroad and who gets a Land Cruiser to navigate through the myriad potholes.

Rwanda’s reforms turn this logic of African politics on its head. The state seeks to build effective public institutions. In doing this, incumbents rob themselves of the power to selectively give privileged access to better health and education services in return for political loyalty. From a rational view, it seems Rwanda’s rulers work against their own political interest. Why? I believe this is largely because Kagame is a true statesman.

Statesmen try to build institutions that can develop perspectives independent of how an individual leader personally exercises power. The critical factor in state evolution is the impersonal application of public policy. When you fall ill, you do not need personal relations with any office holder. You get a service on the basis of your claim to citizenship.

Why does Kagame resist pressures to dish out personalised favours whereas Museveni gets pulled and tossed by them? We can speculate that given Uganda’s social diversity, Museveni has to negotiate with many powerful ethnic and religious interests. This possibly compromises his objectives. In Rwanda, the genocide may have destroyed all other centres of power. This left Kagame a free hand to implement his vision without significant challenge from other societal forces.

Yet circumstances can only offer an opportunity. Which leader will utilise it well depends on their managerial competences and the moral imperatives that drive them. The military victories in Uganda (1986) and Rwanda (1994) offered both Museveni and Kagame opportunities for reform. It seems to me that Museveni was unable to take full advantage of the potential contained in the opportunity in 1986; Kagame has taken full advantage of his.

What could be the cause of this variation? As noted above, Uganda’s diversity limited Museveni’s legroom for reform while Rwanda’s homogeneity may have furnished Kagame the right leverage. But it also seems to me that personal characteristics are at play.

I think Kagame has greater personal discipline than Museveni. He can pursue a national project he believes in with unwavering resolve, a factor that explains his authoritarian and somewhat intolerant streak. He is intolerant of corruption and incompetence but equally as a negative side-effect of this, he is intolerant of free speech.

Museveni, on the other hand, behaves like a chameleon; always adapting his position to suit his most immediate political advantage. So he tolerates corruption and incompetence because they serve his political aims. This makes government incapable of institutional coherence to systematically clump down on free media; the positive side-effect of which is free speech.

Yet it seems to me that Museveni’s calculations are personal (to stay in power) and not national (to develop Uganda). Thus, instead of serving his articulated national project, he is constantly responding to pressures from mobilised demand groups ‘ ‘ring fencing’ elective positions in Bunyoro, granting every clan that demands a new district etc.

Some people think this is a sign of Museveni’s democratic credentials. Yet the cynical manipulation of popular demands to win short term electoral advantage is largely a sign of political opportunism that is injurious to the long term interests of Uganda.

Some of my friends argue that Kagame’s unwavering pursuit of set objectives is a evidence of his authoritarian tendency. Yet, though somewhat suggestive of an intolerance streak, Kagame acts in a principled way because he has a strong moral purpose behind his power ‘ to serve a cause that is bigger than him i.e. to build his country.

Therefore, whichever way you look at it, the debate above offers considerable grist for the comparative mill of these two nations, two revolutions and two presidents.

amwenda@independent.co.ug