New Vision is tarnishing NRM’s image
By Elijah M. Tumwebaze
Allow me make a few observations about the New Vision. I am aware that most media houses in Uganda are reluctant to publish articles that are critical of other media houses. But I hope you people in Uganda Correspondent stick to your editorial promise of being a platform for informed liberal debate and publish my views; however repugnant they may sound.
On Monday 16th August, the pro-NRM New Vision newspaper published the results of a truly astonishing opinion poll. According to the New Vision, [52%] more than half of Ugandans thought President Museveni was, and I quote, “…the best candidate to solve their most pressing problems if re-elected”.
I have been a life-long NRM supporter but I am not sure I want to associate myself with it again. Not because I don’t believe that 52% of Ugandans think President Museveni is the best candidate to solve their problems; because I do. The sustained national stability that Museveni has presided over for the last 25yrs is in my view his strongest point in the eyes of the Ugandan electorate.
On the other hand, the endemic corruption that is eating away the very soul of our nation, the increasing human rights abuses by the police, army, Kiboko Squad etc, and Museveni’s own unfortunate tilt towards political intolerance, have without doubt been the “weakest links” in his otherwise fair record of governance.
But what I found most astonishing about the New Vision opinion poll was the shamelessness with which it claimed that Dr. Kizza Besigye, a man who only recently got a 37% approval rating in a general election, had now only managed a 16.06% approval. I am not a Besigye fan and probably never will be. But I have to ask: What happened? Did he kill someone to lose support that drastically? Is he the one who is in charge of the unfortunate things [the weakest links] that I just mentioned above about the NRM, or is it Museveni? Who should be losing support for those unfortunate acts?
We all know that the New Vision’s CEO Mr. Robert Kabushenga is a ruthlessly ambitious man. And, without pointing a finger of blame, we also know that he and many other NRM sycophants like him will stop at nothing to please the powers that be. If in doubt, ask William Pike!
Not bad if you are running a private enterprise. But the New Vision is not. It is partly owned by us the taxpayers. So I would like to tell Mr. Kabushenga that we Ugandans are not as stupid as the New Vision thinks we are. We are intelligent enough to see what is bogus and what is not. This opinion poll is definitely bogus. It is simply too obvious. In fact, I doubt very much that New Vision’s Editors, if left to their own devices, would have allowed such nonsense to grace the front page of the New Vision because they know that it will taint their professional image.
To protect whatever credibility is left of it, the New Vision must rise above the cheap pro-government propaganda that it is now known for by resisting, on principle, any undue pressure that the government may be bringing to bear on it for political purposes. Personally, I am convinced, almost beyond any reasonable doubt, that the New Vision “cooked up” the figures and deliberately left 18.41% as “undecided” just to knock off some approval from Besigye and leave Museveni’s 52% looking like an overwhelming approval rating.
The most unfortunate thing is that research has consistently shown that a staggering 75% of people who consume media products often believe in them subconsciously without seriously questioning them. If the New Vision indeed cooked up the figures as I strongly suspect they did, then the paper will have sadly metamorphosed from being “Uganda’s leading newspaper” to “Uganda’s leading toilet paper”.
But even as a wavering and undecided ex-NRM supporter, I still have some residual sympathy for it. And because of that, my anger over this bogus poll goes far beyond the people at the New Vision who were responsible for it.
NRM party leaders should know, or at least ought to have known, that when a pro-NRM paper like the New Vision is perceived by the public to be “sexing up” the NRM’s political fortunes, then it implies that the New Vision is doing it with the NRM’s full consent. In other words, that as a party, the NRM knows that it has become terribly unpopular and is willing to accept any rubbish that fraudulently raises its approval ratings.
That, plus the recent violence exhibited by some NRM leaders like Ssekikubo, can, and is in fact, causing irreparable damage to the NRM’s image. Amama Mbabazi, as Secretary General, must move fast and read the riot act to whoever is fighting the NRM “from within” at the New Vision. If the opposition see things as I see them now and point them out to the 75% of uncritical consumers of media products, the NRM will be history.
The writer is a Ugandan student studying Political Communication in Sweden.
