NRM delegates fooled as both Mbabazi and Museveni win Mr Mbabazi attends the conference. Mutual understanding. The NRM delegates’ conference managed to save Mr Amama Mbabazi from ending his NRM career on a traumatic note - he is now free to remodel his politics without the burden of a bad NRM CV The much hyped NRM delegates’ conference last week at Mandela National Stadium at Namboole ended the way it had been purposed to end. That is to cleanse Amama Mbabazi as President Museveni gets his wish to rule uninterrupted. Here is the story. The former prime minister had served President Museveni methodically. In the pursuit of Museveni’s success, Mr Mbabazi did everything possible both within and outside of the law. The bond between them puzzled many. Mr Mbabazi was in effect the de facto vice president with access to the presidential jet as and when he needed it. As prime minister, he in fact chaired Cabinet meetings in spite of the presence of the vice president. All the power with exception of commanding the army (the army is the life and blood of Mr Museveni) was open to Mr Mbabazi. A story of how he used that power to diminish if not extinguish the political careers of other senior leaders within NRM is an old story—the political cemetery is full of graves. This exposure to power, in some quarters, exposed Mr Mbabazi as limited in collegial relations. He focused on upward political accountability (to the boss) and paid limited attention to downward accountability (the masses). But as sages have said before, the wine of power is so sweet that once you start sipping it, you always want the glass full; you will not even tell when it has eroded your stability until you drop. So they say Mr Mbabazi set his eyes on the ultimate job-the presidency. He has not openly declared but his signals point to that. Some say Mr Museveni actually gave him the initial impetus which caused Mr Mbabazi to start mobilisation. He apparently started building campaign cells locally and solicited international networks notably in China and United Arab Emirates (UAE). But he had trusted on a difficult man—Museveni. When it became apparent that Mr Mbabazi was in for the job, Mr Museveni got down to work. He found it difficult to tell Mr Mbabazi that he should not stand because he had earlier given him the spur. President Museveni, aware of Mr Mbabazi’s troubles within the party, crafted a team to demand that he stands as sole candidate. The move came from unlikely quarters, the young MPs: Peter Ogwang, Evelyn Anite, Aggrey Bagiire and Dr Kenneth Omona, among others. All of whom were not from western region, the President’s home area. It was also a strategic choice. They were clandestinely backed by Special Forces Command (SFC) providing them with security and intelligence. They would also directly report to the President. They also spied on fellow MPs and ministers to know who was in support of Mr Mbabazi. First-hand information A team of youthful activists were approached to join Mr Mbabazi’s camp. Their duty was to understand the actual tricks that Mr Mbabazi would use. Mr Museveni feared his former premier’s methods, so he needed first-hand information. Most of these youth were given private mobile phones which would only be used to receive the President’s calls and not any other. They were also coached to be vocal. When the Mbabazi group bought laptops and handed them to their campaign team, most of those computers were handed to SFC to establish their source and programming. Those who gave the laptops to SFC were paid Shs10 million each. The laptops were later returned to them to continue with Mr Mbabazi’s work while SFC picked all the communication. The civil society activists suspected to be sympathetic to Mbabazi were carefully dealt with starting with infiltration. The police officers who were sympathetic to Mr Mbabazi found themselves with uninspiring deployments as Gen Kale Kayihura, the Inspector General of Police and an unapologetic believer in President Museveni, cracked the whip. The army officers suspected to have been in cahoots with the prime minister, were relegated to less influential deployments.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 18:04:44 +0000
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