Elections in Africa: The tragedy of lack of ideology; A Case of Uganda

I was the United States at a time they were going through primaries for the presidential candidates for the two major political parties. The US has the Republican Party which brings together conservatives .These are people who believe that society does not require big government and the role of government in society should be police and defense. They believe in the individual knowing best what he wants and in working to make profit for oneself. These are hard core capitalist. They believe in the traditional religious virtues don't believe in gay marriage don't support single parents and believe in all those conservative traditional positions in society

The other party is the Democratic Party. Of course it too believes in operation of markets but with government control and strict oversight. These are liberals who believe markets are not perfect and need intervention of government to create social justice. They support gay marriages, single family and generally government action to support the poor and vulnerable sections of society. The political battles between these two are interesting and they actually border hatred. In fact listening to Donald Trump who for some time has been a front runner in the Republican Party ,he said there was hatred between the two groups and of course accused Obama who is a democrat president for causing it. The primaries are intended to bring  out the best candidate.  It compares to what Besigye and Muntu had in which Muntu lost to Besigye. They then of course went to the Democratic Alliance  (TDA) where they failed to agree on a single candidate. Then primaries bring out who is best suited for the party.

The parliamentary primaries for the NRM party have been very interesting. The last one of 2011 was controlled by the then Secretary General Amaama Mbabazi. If you didn't support him , it is said you never won the primary. I witnessed the election myself and it was a big scandal. Some candidates were given money others didn't get. Some candidates had spare votes! They stuffed boxes. Today as the NRM concludes the same process it seems no learning took place. Accusations of fraud have been rampart. It is also said that there has been an Amaama factor. Amaama has his silent supporters who he may have sponsored according to press reports but they fear to come out openly to support him at this stage. They have hope that Amaama will make it at the presidential election. If he succeeds they will come out, if he fails they will forever keep quiet.!!!
The differences between the politicians in the US and indeed the Western countries  generally is ideological. Essentially  it is about the role of the state in transformation.
Each group believes its approach is best for the economy and they sell these ideas to the people to elect them into office. In my beloved country Uganda the idea of ideology is not on the table. First of all most of the politicians have peasant backgrounds and likely to be the first to break through in their families to join he middle class. They therefore have no interests  to safeguard yet. Yes they may have studied a bit about ideology but that's not an issue yet. They tend to support whoever is in government that guarantees their job. They also base their politics on either religious affiliation or tribal. Actually some people are their simply to enrich themselves because they have seen it is possible to do so. Yoweri Museveni is schooled in ideology and is the reason he is President today. His beliefs took him out of school and work to join liberation movements. He started his own party to liberate Uganda based on his belief that there was bad governance in Uganda and indeed Africa. He believed in the central role of the state, like the Democrats in the US, to solve societal problems. The democrats though believe in markets. Most of African leaders did not believe in markets being able to solve African problems. I wouldn't blame them. First of all those who colonized the world had objectives of profit maximization and didn't care about the  local people. Secondly when they imposed governments on to these colonized communities, these governments didn’t work with or for local people, they instead supported those who were looking for profit who were back in the colonizing country. Thirdly was the disease of slave trade which appears to have been either promoted or supported by the foreign colonial governments. The leader who emerged at that time therefore had no alternative but to hate the type of government of the day in the 20 the Century Communism appeared to provide the alternative to colonial governments.  Many African leaders therefore played into the communist hands. These ideologies, capitalism and communism were philosophies developed in Europe. The philosophiessuited the conditions in Europe. Africa's conditions were very different. Without the industrial revolution capitalism has no meaning in Africa. Seeking profit was not understood then. Whoever practices it simply rips off the peasant. This is what colonial governments did with introduction of cotton and coffee in Uganda. In Kenya, coffee was on farms owned by whites. In Zimbabwe the same thing happened but the Europeans actually took the land. In South Africa it was worse.
African leaders were his reactionary. Adopting foreign ideology like communism simply because it provided an alternative to capitalism. Not because it provided a better programme. Others like Keneth Kaunda in Zambia introduced humanism, but it was not anchored in production relations. Besides, it had no clear proponents to argue for it. He simply took a bit of African philosophical thinking that was not in the economic arena and thought he could make it an ideology.  It had no chance against the powerful capitalism.
For capitalism to sustain itself it has proponents, researchers, disciples and diehards. In fact both the Republicans and Democrats in the United States have foundations whose role is to research into their thinking and make simulations about the economy and advise the political leaders. The Heritage Foundation and the Brookings foundation serve Republicans and Democrats respectively.
These are think tanks where the ideologues of each party go to think for the party and advise how the interests of each party can be promoted and preserved.
It is not surprising that Africa has copied systems but do not know how to manage and sustain them let alone grow them or practice them.

Looking at the NRM party which is the biggest in the country the first question is what is the ideology of the party? How many people share or understand it if it exists? Given the different leaders with different backgrounds in the NRMis it possible that the leadership is bound by a common ideology .To me NRM is a collection of people who gravitated towards Museveni because he had captured  power and could dispense it. All the Johnny come lately politicians have joined to get a piece of that power and the resources that go with it. Unfortunately NRM has failed to build a party. That's why we have the Besigyes and Amaamas emerging. Amaama is arguing that yes he has been close to the power but he didn't dispense it. He now wants it so that he can do what he would have wanted to do. This is because NRM has no clear ideology. If it had Amaama wouldn't have emerged this way and would not be saying that. This is because ideology keeps interests of members a member cannot go away. If he does he goes with others on a clear disagreement with the mainstream party. Amaama should have agreed to go away with those who believed that the party no longer served their interests not simply because he wants to be President. India which has copied western democracy has seen break up of mainstream parties but like the NRM now the breakup of most has not been ideological. Its been about wielding power. This has seen emergence of numerous parties in India. However the difference is that unlike Uganda Indian political groups have some interests that back them.

In Uganda the intellectuals who should advise the politicians are nowhere near doing that, in fact they are accused of being theorists who know nothing about politics. The intellectuals are the guiding forces of any development.  They look at what the politicians are doing and make sense out of it. They provide guidance through testing of the different practices by politicians. But who listens to them? Not surprising that NRM today has no think tank or interests groups who support it .most members are looking for resources. Possibly the  historical s could be the interest groups but they periodically loose elections and go to the cold .it is the generals who normally get support from the establishment , not others. For this reason there are no Families, businesses and diehard individuals who believe in the NRM philosophy, because it doesn't have one anyway, who will go with it where ever it goes. This is because there is no common thread that links the different parts of the party together. Parties will form when they develop a common ideology without it they have no locus. Elections are therefore not about preserving interests but for the individual to get employed. May be, one day a system may form a political system. Good luck to those seeking elective offices