By Mulengera Editorial Board
At first, it was Deputy President Mukasa Mbidde who declared that Norbert Mao’s Speakership bid was not viable. He declared support for Anita Among and he has been openly campaigning for her since that time.
He was castigated by people in the Mao universe but Mukasa Mbidde stood firm and refused to back down. He has maintained that Mao’s bid is just a moot exercise with no chance of going anywhere. He has only fallen short of declaring it dead on arrival.
Then over the weekend came Gerald Siranda, the non-mercurial DP Secretary General. Siranda, who also is one of the 9 Ugandan reps at the Arusha-based EALA, is a very a thoughtful person who can’t just pivot recklessly. This is something he must have thought about before going public.
He says that Anita Among is like a mother to him and that without her playing some role, he wouldn’t be the EALA legislator he is today.
The implication of all this is that Anita Among has been more important in Siranda’s political evolution than Mao, who many thought has always been there for him since when he first fished him from UPC and recruited him into DP where he was made Deputy SG under the late Matia Nsubuga.
Upon Nsubuga’s death, Siranda was elevated to full Secretary General. All this had the full backing of Mao, without whom Siranda arguably wouldn’t be the big man he is today. Siranda has also been able to remain SG since that time largely because of the Mao patronage.
Supporters of Ivan Kiirya, the ex-DP publicist, assert that it was this Mao backing that enabled the stealing of their man’s votes during the DP delegates conference in Mbarara last year. Kiirya has never forgiven Mao because he believes that he is the one who enabled the stealing of his votes in favour of Siranda.
Mao supporters feel betrayed that Siranda hasn’t been able to be there for their man when it mattered most, as he seeks to become Speaker. Mao and his wife Beatrice are claimed to have materially supported Siranda at the time he was Secretary General but without any formal employment. He needed such relationship to get things like rent and generally make ends meet.
Mao, who for long believed that he had a duty to prepare the SG to become future party President, has more reason to feel crashed and even betrayed by Siranda’s refusal to embrace his Speakership bid. Days before embracing the Anita Among bid, while controversially shunning his own Party President, Siranda had been to Mao’s Kampala residence in Lubowa, off Entebbe Road, where he even ate a meal with the Mao family.
To their surprise, Siranda, who even gladly received financial support from the Maos towards the treatment and medication of his ailing wife, immediately after leaving their house went public about his support for Anita Among, the only formidable challenger Mao has to overcome in order to become the next Speaker.
Those who know him say that Siranda isn’t the type who is going to ever be sorry or repentant about his political choices and decision. It’s feared that inside the DP NEC, things are going to get worst first before getting better. Negative publicity-creating escalation is anticipated.
BROADER IMPLICATIONS:
Whatever way one looks at it, all this isolation and Mao’s failure to secure the backing of these two very powerful men, with whom he has been leading DP for all these years, is indicative of a politician who has fallen on hard times, politically speaking.
Personally, Mao says that there is still hope for him to become that Speakership contender who the President (Gen Museveni) will end up directing his NRM caucus MPs to rally behind and vote for, while disregarding Anita Among, against whom Andrew Mwenda (a self-professed Mao admirer) has vigorously been campaigning as unsuitable.
Failing to have the unanimous backing of members of his top executive, as DP President, diminishes Mao and clearly makes him hard brand even for Museveni (who Mwenda says is under immense pressure to abandon Anita Among on grounds that she has become too powerful) to sell to his NRM caucus MPs.
Museveni will naturally be tasked to demonstrate what makes Mao a better choice for Speakership, than Anita Among, if he can’t even hold DP together.
How can he lead effectively and keep Parliament united if he can’t unite the entire DP NEC behind his Speakership bid? This will create a dilemma of some sort, and it won’t be a question which Mao bid’s backers, inside the Museveni political orbit, will be able to easily explain away.
But even after the Speakership vote (after which Among could forget/disregard Mbidde and Siranda while turning her back on them), DP will be even harder for Mao to lead as President and be sustainable. It’s hard to imagine how he can continue to effectively lead the party and remain viable as its head without the backing of especially Mbidde who has been his key fixer and chief strategist since 2010 when he first became President General for the Party.
It will be extremely hard to continue being effective as DP President without having to rely on Mbidde and Siranda who have been his most effective enablers for all these years.
Mao has always been right since 2010 (disagreeing with Erias Lukwago, Betty Nambooze, Mathias Mpuuga, the DP Bloc team, Lulume, the Sebamala group etc) but this time round it’s going to be hard to get people believe that he is still the one who is right when those leading the charge against him are led by Mukasa Mbidde and Siranda.
The impending escalation will inevitably result into a new faction being created in DP and Mao will need divine intervention to prevail against what’s predictably coming. Mbidde and Siranda are both ambitious younger men and it won’t be surprising if they teamed up with some of the people who left/decamped earlier (especially after the Mbarara delegates conference) to demand the Mao ouster. Already, there are reports they are both interested in the DP Presidency.
Especially the SG Siranda has lots of cards to play and deploy against Mao, by virtue of the position he occupies, which means that there is no way Mao will survive ouster in case of an escalation deriving from the Speakership vote.
As a person, Mao is a pragmatist who knows when to back down but this time round, he is very unlikely to act that reasonably because of the immense influence, which insiders say, his wife Beatrice is in position to mount on him.
She is naturally very belligerent and is now understandably angry at the betrayal the two DP power brokers have occasioned on her husband and it’s her wish that the Loro-Pece MP-elect doesn’t forgive and ever get to do business with them again. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
