The Rise of Popularist Politics

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Let’s start with a story, a true story.

There is a friend, who recently launched a project to become a Member of Parliament. So during the Christmas festivals he distributed posters with the slogans the politicians in Uganda use “Unity, Development and Jobs” with a photograph of himself. The photograph became the Achilles heel, it was, after all, the most appealing item on the posters and so that is what the man on the street saw first and last.

Upon seeing the posters the man on the street concluded he would not be voting for this person because the photograph seemed to portray my friend as being financially well-off. The man on the street wanted a person who is similar to them in every conceivable way. He wants the “man of the people.”  

For some reason, voters no longer want leaders who are cleverer or better than them. It is still easier for a rich person to win elections than some finance /engineering / sociology genius. In fact commercial success vindicates any ideas (stupid or not) the rich man or woman holds. That is why one cannot use the slogan “Am more knowledge than any other candidate, Vote for me”. Voters feel offended being told they are not as clever or knowledgeable about anything. In the era of the talk Radio and TV media, everyone has an idea about everything, and anyone is an expert as long as they can shout out their ideas long and loud enough. In fact the more expert one is on the subject, the less the populace/voters will listen to him or her.  

In politics today, the most used slogan is “muntu wa bantu” roughly translated as “one of us”. The use of it on campaign posters is new, but the truth is that this is what popular democratic politics (the Post-Lincoln American version at least) is all about. In fact, the foundations of this kind of democracy (the three branches of government, presidential term limits, independent press, dictatorship by the majority, etc.) Uganda is trying to learn and instill into the core of our society are analogous to the original societal values associated with political leadership. The African societies that the colonialist found here had their politics rooted in consensus and not the dictatorship-by-the-majority model that the post-Lincoln America has forced down our throats since 1945.

The British colonial masters did not envisage this, which is why term limits do not exist in British politics. The colonial masters had the idea of rule-by-consensus (mostly among the elite – the House of Lords) as the model to instill in their colonies. That is the kind of State the British set up, Prime Minister Milton Obote did not have to deal with term limits in the Lancaster Constitution of 1961. Of course, President Museveni in the first years of his rule castigated “African Leaders who overstay in power”, but let’s remember by then the center of Imperial power had changed, it was now the Americans’ turn, and for them having term-limits in our laws is a show of loyalty to the “new Rome” – Washington. Now, some 100 years or so after the colonialists created Uganda, fifty years of which we were learning how to be British, the media (mostly foreign owned) is trying to revise the book on that – and are promoting the popularist political model the American is instilling world over.

Changing socio-economic conditions (population growth, climate change, land shortages, a failing capitalist economic model) have brought widespread disillusionment with politics-as-usual, this in turn is causing a sort of ‘democracy fatigue.’ In the past (pre-American model of democracy), the fatigue could have meant violent revolution (such as the French one) or peaceful societal changes (the industrial revolution in the Anglo-Saxon world). However, in present times, the fatigue is driving voters towards ‘anti-politics’ and the radicalized politicians who would usually be safely tacked away at end of the political spectrum.

Cheap politics explains why His Excellency Bobi Wine, President of the ghetto thinks he ought to be His Excellency Kyagulanyi Robert (aka Bobi Wine) President of Uganda in 2021. Leadership especially at that level is serious business, but the man on the street seems to think that one does not need to study or prepare to be a leader in order to be President.

That is how politicians get people to vote for them while promising no solution to the problems they elucidate. Has anyone realized that all opposition politicians simply promise to “remove the incumbent,” and then we shall walk into utopia.  Has anyone written a treatise on “PEOPLE POWER, OUR POWER” means? No, but we all enjoy the simple messaging, and the antics that go with that, in such a way that we  will believe every single word Bobi Wine says about the State and government without a single pinch of salt.

Populist radical politicians are often identified by their use of narratives, though each may give priority to different combinations of them and not necessarily employ them all. The popular narratives include tribal narratives, religious narratives, anti-elite narratives, and anti-immigration/refugee narratives. The allure of the people-power populism model resides in the combination of the seemingly reasonable people with the radicals, and the promise of a quick fix for political, economic, and social problems that are experienced more widely.

The threat of popularist discourse to civil society space is more real today than ever before. For instance, the middle-class seems to think Bobi Wine has a plan to solve the nation’s problem even though he has never showed it to anyone. The politics, and discourses of this kind of politics threatens open and honest dialogue in civil society space and curtails the ability of the state prescribe to administer the true medicine to the core problems of the nation.

The media is now a profit driven enterprise being therefore the only for-profit business that is protected by law from the scrutiny other businesses like say banking have to endure from the government.

In order to drive profits upwards, the media-house owners have promoted the idea that because there are two sides to every question, they both must be right, or at least not wrong. And the words of an obscure medical doctor carry no more weight on the subject of torture than do the thunderstones of some comedian-cum-artist-cum-politician.

For the media today, politics is really about the price of a candidate’s clothes and haircuts, and less about say, the war in Somalia or the mis-education of our children. When it comes to national politics, the nation is very well entertained, but not engaged. Ugandans seem to be drowning in information and yet there is thirsty for knowledge. It is sometimes termed as knowledge divide.  

Even issues to do with regional trade and relations have to pass through the lenses of entertainment as the media tells the population what is going on. For instance in the current perceived Rwanda-Uganda row at Katuna/Gatuna, the war drums are being sounded by the media and then the journalists coerce the governments of the two sisters to confirm that there is going to be a war. That is why there is very little official input into the stories and all that the media quotes are the unidentified sources. So if one wanted some media attention right now, simply insert yourself (in other words your views) into the apparent Rwanda-Uganda border row.

Dr. Kizza Besigye (and his FDC) learnt this earlier this week when the attack upon his person by those who support Bobi Wine’s while appearing on the CBS radio programme. The incident attracted very little media attention compared to the perceived upcoming war with Rwanda. That is because fear is good entertainment and the media is all about entertaining the people to attract the advertising money to keep the profits up.

So, yes the reality of national politics is that the government ought to know that the man-on-the-street is engaged and actively participates in the affairs of the country. The risky part of this argument is that, even when given the means to acquire information, the people of the country may decline to know. The lesson learnt from my friend’s attempt to be Member of Parliament is that most people will vote for a candidate who they enjoy drinking beer with, and not someone who is going to talk economic policy or trade relations with China during the campaigns.

So consider all the people with whom you’ve tossed back a beer. How many of them would you trust with the running of a Cabinet meeting? Greeting the president of Rwanda, as Commander-in-Chief for an army engaged in the Somalia, CAR, South Sudan war theatres.

 

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