Mbabazi candidature: Where did things go wrong?

Go Forward presidential candidate Amama Mbabazi addresses his supporters in Mbale Town during his first visit to the district last year. FILE PHOTO 

Mr Amama Mbabazi emerged out of the presidential election a victor. The veteran politician walked out of a gruelling three month campaign period more cleansed than bruised; scoring moral points he may as well never have ever scored had he stuck to President Museveni’s service. This is why:

Critics of President Museveni, whether basing on his economics or democratic credentials as parameters to assess his 30-year reign, have for long paired him with one of his Mr Fix it.
The story of Museveni’s failures, unlike his successes, has always been complete with men like Mbabazi in the equation. And yet society has a way it closes one eye to our chequered past and opens its arms if we preach change as did the Biblical Saul later Paul.

Edward Lowassa, who gave new Tanzania president John Magufuli a run for his money, had had his name soiled in multimillion dollar scandals during his tenure as prime minister but how Tanzanians, including opposition that largely kept punching Lowasa’s credibility as prime minister, shifted criticism to support is intriguing.

That is where Mbabazi registered himself a victory. For the better part of his time as prime minister, Mbabazi’s time on the floor of Parliament was characterised by heckling from MPs such as the late Cerinah Nebanda and Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, always chanting, “Temangalo” in relation to the controversial land transaction that almost dealt Mbabazi’s political career a blow.

Today his yesterday critics speak in less harsh tones and now see him as an ally in the anti-Museveni struggle.

Rude shocker
The statistics from the general election remain a slap on Mbabazi’s face, a rude shocker to journalists, pundits and political actors who created the impression Mbabazi was the man sent from heaven to finish a job Dr Kizza Besigye has since 2001 “failed to accomplish.”

Timothy Kalyegira, a columnist with this newspaper, once wrote that Mbabazi was the man to give Mr Museveni the knockout punch.

There were stories, told in broadcast and print media, of how the man from Kanungu was the choice of the West, particularly the United States, the United Kingdom, as well as Asian power houses like China and the Arab world with United Arab Emirates high on the list.

In an interview with the Observer, Besigye was asked to comment on claims that the West had shifted its focus from him to Mbabazi.

The retired colonel said the struggle for a better Uganda was for Ugandans, not foreigners to fight, but didn’t rule out partnering with friends of that struggle.

At The Democratic Alliance (TDA) process to arrive at a single candidate for the Opposition to take on Museveni, every word and deed from the principals at TDA pointed to Mbabazi as a pre-anointed choice whom Besigye, a tested and proven Museveni challenger with verifiable support since 2001, should throw his weight behind.
And then stories were told of how Mbabazi has insider knowledge of the inner workings of every detail of our security apparatus, right from his heydays as a Fronasa winger to National Resistance Army secret operations, stretching to his post-1986 roles as director External Security Organisation, junior Defence minister, Security minister and eventually prime minister.
With these contacts built over a 40 year period, coupled with external backing, with stories told of how America’s Federal Bureau of Investigations, Israel’s MOSSAD, UK’s M16, and the Vatican’s intelligence antennae followed Mbabazi’s movements and no harm could be done to him, the world was told, Mbabazi was “the thing” as Justice James Ogoola would say.
And then came the money tales. Tabloid after tabloid screamed how Mbabazi had received millions of dollars from USA’s powerful gay lobby group, how Chinese and Dubai businessmen had channelled a fortune that could run the Museveni financial muscle thin.

Speaking on Capital Gang, Mbabazi said “I have the money to run the campaign to its maximum” as though to validate claims he had, as MP Ssemujju said on that talk show, “more space for money than people to pass in his house”.

Mr Mbabazi, in the words of a close family member this reporter talked to, “has an image of a god, a superior being, a superstar, and it works for him even when most of what is said is not true”.

But as in Richard Sheridan’s play School for scandal, the whole project seemed to be stuck in the web of appearances vs reality.

Ugandans, it appears, especially those disillusioned with the Museveni regime, are like a drowning man who will clutch on a straw, sometimes reasoning with despair and falling short of interrogating even what appears obviously doubtable.
Mr Olara Otunnu perhaps compares to Mbabazi in the sense of how much excitement he caused when he walked out of the United Nations, bringing to an end a high flying diplomatic career that nearly got him the secretary general slot that Ghana’s Kofi Anan took.