To those familiar with the National Resistance Movement (NRM) revolution, Gen. Kainerugaba’s tweet is a prelude to a change of guard: from President Museveni to Gen. Muhoozi.
In order to make a transfer of power from father to son seem less parochial than it is, Gen. Kainerugaba has described it in rhapsodic terms as the dawn of a new era. It now seems like a revolution born of revolution. This, in the context of our politics, was inevitable.
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The 1986 NRM revolution has always borrowed generously from the 1949 Chinese Revolution.
The National Resistance Army (NRA), previously the armed wing of the NRM, went to the bush in 1981 over a contested election. This led to war and, in five years, the liberation of Uganda occurred by what the NRA called 'a protracted people's war'.
People's war or protracted people's war is a Maoist military strategy. First developed by the Chinese communist revolutionary leader Mao Zedong (1893–1976), a people's war was waged upon the angry consent of the population.
Predicated on guerrilla warfare and inevitably mobile warfare, it is guided by the Maoist notion that “the guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea.”
Although often described as Marxist, the NRM is a Maoist.
What Marx said
The German social philosopher and economist Karl Marx condemned capitalism as a system that alienates the masses.
It overburdens the worker with production, but the worker does not own the means of production. It is the capitalist, helped along by market forces, who control the wealth of the country.
This capitalist exploits the worker, leaving him/her unworthy of their hire. As Marx explained, all class societies produce a legal, political and ideological "superstructure" that operates to freeze the existing relations of production and protect the rulers from the ruled.
This sets the stage for a class struggle, a battle for bread. To resolve this contradiction, the workers take command of the means of production and then create a dictatorship of the proletariat (a fancy word for worker).
However, Mao took a different tack. He did not use the worker to overthrow the status quo, he attracted peasants to his People’s Liberation Army (now Red Army) towards overthrowing their oppressors. This made sense.
When Mao Zedong announced the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the country's economy was predominantly agricultural with 85% of the population classed as peasantry.
From time out of mind, peasant agricultural production has been the predominant economic activity in the landlocked country of Uganda.
Most Ugandans are peasants, at least they were when Museveni went to the bush in 1981. So by Museveni leading the peasants of the Luwero bush to overturn the Milton Obote regime, Museveni was being Maoist not Marxist.
The Cultural Revolution
Gen. Kainerugaba’s tweet, if seen through Maoist lenses, is his call for a second revolution. This originated with Mao, too.
The Chinese Communist Party shot its way to power in 1949. But in 1966, Mao felt that his hold on the party was in question so he launched a second revolution, The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution went on for ten years and saw the Chinese masses used by Mao to reassert his control over the Communist Party.
It is no secret that President Museveni’s hold on the NRM party is weakening. This can be attributed to his age and the sheer scale of a neo-patrimonial system whose wheels have long since come off.
To redeem his father’s power (Kainerugaba means the redeemer or avenger), the First Son is announcing his own revolution. And what is good for Museveni is surely good for Muhoozi, as the dynastic ambitions of the First Family unfurl for all to see.
This is the very essence of the so-called Sixth Republic: keeping it all in the family. But how will such a dispensation play out?
The Sixth Republic
Gen. Kainerugaba’s followers have already given us a glimpse of some of the changes they hope to see in a post-Museveni era.
One, they are promoting what they call “Regional Rotation”, when it comes to leadership in the interlacustrine region.
This will entail the topmost offices in the country (the Presidency, the Deputy Presidency, the Prime Ministership, and the Speakership) being rotated between the regions in the country.
This round-robin system will eliminate political jockeying by making leadership something that is for one and all.
Two, a new form of parliament will arise in the Sixth Republic. “The People’s Popular Legislative Assembly’, whose members will be known as ‘Delegates’ (not MPs), with a maximum of 250 members who will earn allowances and not salaries will spring into being.
Three, a new form of cabinet members called ‘Secretaries to the Cabinet’, who will be elected by universal adult suffrage (not appointed by MPs), with a maximum of 25 members and no deputies, only Permanent Secretaries, will be a reality.