Why Bobi Wine’s ‘Watermelon’ Team Cannot Unseat Museveni

On 24^th, July 2019,  Bobi Wine named his coordinating team and many well-known prominent opposition party Members were seen “eating big” in the People Power government. The pressure group named at least 24 current MPs in its ranks and other diehard political party well-known Members.

It is not new for such pressure groups to come up and build a seemingly threatening momentum against the ruling party of the National Resistance Movement (NRM). Uganda’s politics is analogous with such haphazard groups that come up especially towards any general elections.

Usually their motives range from individual to individual, to some ; these groups usher them into political/social limelight for their future aspirations; To others,  such groups are vehicles for political mobilization for offices that they are aspiring for in the upcoming elections; yet to some have a genuine desire for political change, and are sincerely committed to the change agenda.

A good number of those who join such groups are political entrepreneurs who have a mentality of strategically making dishonest accusations against the government to attract the ruling party into “talking them out”, with belief that they shall levy a price on their ‘cross-over from opposition to support the government’. These are mostly Youths and other political schemers who want to use such platforms to negotiate for political appointments/offices, and or placements in government. In this category is those who want to feature as anti-government political activities, and intend to use that for securing visas to the USA or any other first world country, and later use that to seek asylum under reasons of political persecution.

Many also have noticed that Ugandan politics are far from reason and are not issue-based and those who make it through are not the intellectually smart people, rather the ability to excite a following, up to the voting day is what determines the next leader, especially in urban centers.

Meanwhile, the civil society invisible hand cannot be ruled out. If anyone has monitored the Ugandan political terrain, then he will  notice an active role of the civil society organizations who indeed are sometimes behind formulation of such pressure groups to make accountability of the governance and democracy funds that they solicit from funding partners and agencies; a case in point was the “Go forward’’ plus the TDA(the democratic alliance) formations in 2015/16 and the heavy visibility of civil society organizations and key personalities like Bishop Zack Niringiye, Godber Tumushabe, and many other renown civil society activities became partisan and so involved in the pressure groups of the time.

The above and many more are associated with the political eve of general elections in Uganda. This is the case with Bobi-Wine’s people power, which is evident with those I have termed watermelon politicians. These if sliced are red inside just like watermelon and yet on the outside are Democratic Party (green by identity).

It is then a done deal for the ruling NRM party whose reliance on grassroots structure mobilization still forms the pivot of its strength and theirs is a game of accurate calculation of numbers.

People Power is not a registered political party and the rush by party stalwarts; to join an undefined entity may turn out politically counterproductive for many. It may not only be so to Bobi Wine, whose bid for the presidency is in high gear, and yet the team is a pile of watermelons, who will definitely not withstand the shelve life of the political season. The team is too perishable and if Bobi wine relies on them, he may suffer the same humiliation that Hon. Amama Mbabazi got himself into, as he woke up one day to find himself alone on the podium when all the Medard Lubega Ssegona and others became too busy in their own parliamentary campaigns and more so flashing the green outer cover of their political identity.

According to some analysts, by piling a multi-colored group of political leaders into an amorphous vehicle and promising to drive them to political success, Bobi Wine is using the same formula as his political mentor; Kizza Besigye; which formula has not delivered since 2001.