Tag Archives: liability

NRM has become a liability for its sponsors and supporters

The National Resistance Movement (NRM) came to power with domestic and external sponsors (those who fund and champion its cause) and gained supporters (those who are won over). The original sponsors and supporters of NRM inside Uganda had suffered political losses under Obote’s government – Catholics had lost elections twice to UPC and Buganda had lost the kingdom and ‘Lost counties’ referendum. Those who sponsored and supported NRM outside Uganda did not trust Obote despite his pledge to introduce capitalism under structural adjustment. They believed he was still a socialist and could not be trusted. The common characteristic is that those against Obote and UPC were in a hurry and could not wait for the next elections in 1985 or 1986 to defeat UPC that won the 1980 elections. They chose a military option for quicker results. Various guerrilla groups were formed, some of them merged into the NRM. NRM captured power in 1986 exactly five years when elections were due. So the results were not quicker but were clearly very destructive of lives, property and infrastructure and many deficits still remain unresolved.

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Museveni has become a liability to his sponsors

When Museveni was waging his bloody guerrilla war in the early 1980s he gave the impression that he was a uniter in contrast to his predecessors who had been viewed as dividers along sectarian lines. Consequently many Ugandans across the country sponsored his cause.

When he became president in 1986 he formed a cabinet that truly reflected his determination to unify all the people of Uganda. He even defined an economic policy that reflected accommodation of various interests. Then he announced that only individual merit would determine recruitment, assignment, promotion and awarding of scholarships. He advised that political activities would be suspended until national unity had attained a level that sectarianism would not raise its ugly head in Uganda politics. His popularity at home soared!

In May 1987, Museveni’s government entered into a stabilization and structural adjustment agreement with the International Monetary Fund and later with the World Bank. The government adopted the ‘shock therapy’ version of comprehensive and simultaneous implementation of all the elements in the structural adjustment package that was favored by the donor community. “He [Museveni] quickly became the darling of the West when he embraced the IMF/World Bank prescribed Structural Adjustment Programs, cutting down on civil service and social services expenditure and sacrificing state parastatals on the alter of liberalization” (Business in Africa. April 2001).

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