Daily Monitor ..... After his strategists touted the sole candidature idea, setting the tone for the 2016 elections, President Museveni today begins walking the delicate line of uniting the ruling party without appearing to arm-twist sacked prime minister Amama Mbabazi and any other interested contenders out of the presidential race. In a make-or-break speech to more than 10,000 NRM delegates, the party leader is expected to count his achievements and failures amid growing cynicism, call for unity within the party and urge Ugandans to coalesce behind a populist message that his party offers the best prospects for fending off the “strategic bottlenecks” the country face today. The NRM leader will also rally the party faithful at today’s official opening of the NRM National Conference at Mandela National Stadium, signaling an attempt to redefine the hullabaloo around the sacking of Mr Mbabazi, which the country has spent months discussing. On socio-economic transformation, Mr Museveni would blame the unsatisfactory progress on corrupt civil servants who solicit bribes from potential investors. He would seek to convince the delegates that the wrong plans and decisions of politicians working with civil servants contribute to the disruption of development projects. The President is expected to repeat what he reportedly told the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting at State House Entebbe yesterday that the second weakness or mistake has been the “prolonged failure to implement our plan of Prosperity-for-All”, first launched in 1995. He would also recognise that more than Shs400 billion injected in the bungled project did not go to the poor families that his government intended to help. Turning partisan in spite of the civil society calls for political actors to find common ground, especially in trying to find solutions to what is slowing development, Mr Museveni will seek to rebuke the Opposition as “politically too blind” to see the achievements the NRM party has made over the years. Mr Museveni has been in power for 28 years and is expected to reveal whether he would seek for re-election. Mr Morrison Rwakakamba and other members of the organising committee told Daily Monitor the President’s address will also highlight ways of “consolidating party cohesion, building resilient and agile party structures, deepening the country’s economy further and harnessing East African Community opportunities”. Unemployment The rising youth unemployment, which some NRM members attributed to untamed corruption in the public service and the structural bottlenecks, will also be on the President’s agenda. To stimulate wealth creation, the NRM leader is expected to talk about four strategic sectors (commercial farming, industry, services and ICT). The President will also talk about the Shs260b Youth Livelihood Programme, a five-year anti- poverty project run by Ministry of Gender. On the achievements, widely seen by analysts as a veiled defence to the sole candidature campaign, the President will tell the delegates that under his leadership, the country has realised social progress and continued expansion of the economy from $1.5 billion in 1986 to now almost $28b. The GDP per capita is now $788 up from $571.68 in 2013. The dynamics shaping the forthcoming general elections, particularly the challenges facing Mr Museveni, within the NRM party, is expected to come to life during the conference. The NRM leader is expected to come face-to- face with pro-Mbabazi supporters and independent-minded members who believe another person should take over the stewardship of the “yellow bus” Defending his leadership, Mr Museveni, on the side of infrastructure, would say, “We have repaired the 1,200km of tarmac roads we inherited in 1986 and built another 3,800km of new tarmac roads. We have reduced poverty from 56 per cent to 19.7 per cent, increased power generation from 60MW to 856MW and revenue collection increased from Shs5b to Shs12 trillion”. In order to modernise economy, the President is expected to rally his members to support him in ensuring that: “We must lower the costs of doing business in our country,” adding that the two factors that push up costs “are transport and electricity.” Sources close to State House told Daily Monitor that the NRM leader is expected to tell members that “there is still a lot more to be done in order to realise the country’s ideological vision of uniting Uganda to ensure nationalism, pan-africanism, transforming the country from a poor peasantry society to a modern economy and upholding democracy.” Committed In an effort to show the NRM leader was fully committed to bolstering his party’s cause as enshrined in the 2011-16 Manifesto the chairperson of the organising committee, Ms Rose Namayanja (Information Minister) said, Mr Museveni was unflinching in the fight against poverty, ignorance and diseases, adding that he was actively looking for ways to deal with these challenges. President Museveni is also expected to offer context to some controversial constitutional amendments such as the one on the position of the party secretary general and the hullabaloo over sole candidature. SG saga Similarly, he will remind those opposed to an appointed SG and deputy that the NRM delegates’ conference in 2010 resolved that the party’s secretary general becomes a full- time job and whoever is elected to the post should not hold another demanding government job so that they can have a free hand to build the party and mobilise members. While it is not yet clear whether what some party members call “a deposed SG” would attend the party’s National Conference after he allegedly walked out of Central Executive Committee with his wife (Jacqueline Mbabazi) protesting the majority decision to appoint SG and deputy, the dynamics shaping the 2016 polls, particularly the challenges facing Mr Museveni looks like a developing story. Summary The President is expected to conclude by highlighting the failures, maintaining that the ruling party could have done better if it was not for the delayed investment projects, lack of cohesion in budgeting, corruption in roads authority and in other government institutions. In calling for unity, some senior legislators and analysts warned that his biggest problem over the next years may not be coming from recalcitrant NRM members not even from an elected Secretary General, but from members of his own party blanching at his activist agenda over the remaining period of his term in office.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Dec 2014 04:20:03 +0000
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