Will President Yoweri Museveni persist with or back down from his plans to give Mabira forest to Sugar Corporation of Uganda Limited (Scoul) to plant sugar cane? The president is in a catch 22 situation. The recent demonstrations, arsons, riots and threats show that Mabira has become politically significant. It is now the rallying issue around which all forces opposed to Museveni's increasingly arbitrary, nepotistic and corrupt rule have coalesced.

For many years, the opposition in Uganda has demonstrated significant weakness because it lacked issues around which to rally the public. The only time it has shown relevance has been during election time. This always tended to reflect them as people only interested in power. Thus, even when they have organised demonstrations and rallies in the past, the opposition only justified their actions on grounds that it was their right to express themselves and to assemble.

It is difficult to construct a political struggle around a desire to capture power. Such struggles are only successful in circumstances of great economic and political failure; and Museveni's Uganda - although on that path - is not there yet. Often, a successful political opposition needs to position itself as a viable alternative. This requires that it presents an alternative policy agenda. It also needs to position itself as the political force that embodies the public will, articulates the national interest and represents the concerns of the majority. The Ugandan opposition has been weak at this.

Opportunity

Mabira has inadvertently provided the opposition with the perfect opportunity - an issue around which to rally people. For the first time, the forces opposed to Museveni are not challenging him because they want power. Rather, they claim that they are seeking to save a national asset. This places them in the perfect political position to appeal to a large cross section of those who are not partisans. It places Museveni at considerable disadvantage as the president who stands for the destruction of national assets.

Therefore, if Museveni persists with cutting down the forest, he will have allowed the opposition to retain an issue they desperately need to sustain their political momentum. This is only possible if the opposition realise the opportunity Mabira offers them and if they can build organisational structures that can sustain this momentum. However should he back down, he will have shown great political weakness. Either way, the president stands between a rock and a hard place.

But can Museveni find a face saving exit out of this difficult situation so that his withdrawal does not look like a retreat? One strategy can be to take the issue to cabinet and parliament and signal to both that he is willing to let go of his plans. This way, Museveni may present himself as a leader who respects state institutions and their decisions. He will also position himself as a great compromiser. If he achieves this, Museveni may have pulled the rug from under the feet of the opposition as he will have taken away their most critical rallying point.

However, the opposition can outsmart him if they declare his attempts to retreat as their victory. By organising a mass demonstration to celebrate their victory, they may hurt that part of Museveni's ego that makes the president want to dig in. The opposition can pick on another issue immediately - Makerere University, Mulago Hospital, tax rates, potholes etc. In military science, this is called "following up a victory": when the enemy begins to retreat, you do not give them breathing space. You chase them to force another battle, another confrontation before they have had time to settle down, reorganise and launch their own offensive. It is not yet clear whether the opposition know the issues and have organisational capacity to follow up such a victory.

But Mabira also shows that Museveni has lost a lot of political capital. People no longer trust that his decisions are driven by a public interest. Kampala is rife with rumours that some people close to the president have an economic stake in Scoul. In other words, a national asset is being given out to satisfy private economic gain. The point is that even if Museveni had strong economic reasons for cutting down Mabira (which he does not) the public are unwilling to believe that he is driven by concern for the public good.

Death of a dream

In many ways therefore, the movement to save Mabira represents the death of a dream. For we must remember that, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) was born in a moment of hope. It is difficult for me to recapture the emotional tone of that moment when Museveni was sworn in as president in January 1986. People had made big sacrifices to bring NRM to power: lives had been lost, careers sacrificed, property lost and educations abandoned. However, the NRM government has increasingly become a system where the sacrifices of many have been turned into a pattern of private privilege for a few.

Mabira represents the loss of this dream because it is not the first forest or national asset Museveni has unconstitutionally and arbitrarily given out to "investors." In 1996, the president de-gazetted Namanve forest to turn it into an industrial park. The debate on Namanve was over the utility of his decision; never on his subjective motivations. I remember Monitor's editor at the time, Charles Onyango-Obbo, wrote an impassioned column supporting Museveni on Namanve. The article ended with a bang - Obbo literally called on everyone to grab a machete, axe and saw to cut down Namanve.

Clearly therefore, this was the time when Ugandans looked at Museveni's decisions as representing the national interest. Those who disagreed with him did so, on grounds that the president was wrong. Never - during the late 1980s, early to mid 90s - did the president's critics accuse him of making decisions because of personal or family material gain. However, perceptions began to change during the late 1990s. Today even many in his own government do not believe that the president is driven primarily by the national interest. This is because Museveni had increasingly made decisions that cause suspicion about his motivations.

In 1999, he ordered Moses Ali to allow Bahima cattle keepers to take over Katonga Game Reserve on the dubious claim that Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels had infiltrated the area. Even a child of six years could see that you do not fight rebels with cattle herding but by deploying an army. Immediately after the 2001 elections, Museveni handed over Butamira forest to the Madhvani group to plant sugarcane. In 2003 he gave Bugala forest to BIDCO to plant Oil Palm trees. He has since proceeded to give investors prime land in Kampala city, extend to them tax rebates, cheap loans, debt write-offs and subsidies without official policy sanction.

If land, credit and taxes are constraints to doing business in Uganda, the country can overcome them through official policy. By passing an enabling law, the government can make land available to all investors, reduce tax rates and recapitalise Uganda Development Bank. If such was done, investors would not need to line up at State House to get personal favours from the president. Museveni has undermined his political credibility because his insistence on personalised favours to business lends credence to accusations that he personally and people close to him have private interests in giving out public assets.

Museveni's strength

The opposition, on the other hand, is still punching far below its weight. It has still failed to articulate a coherent alternative to Museveni. If the president claims that giving out Mabira to Scoul will create jobs, increase the government's tax returns, industrialise the country and earn more foreign exchange, it is not enough to simply dismiss his claims. These are important issues of national policy.

The opposition need to present a better case that shows that by weighing the pros and cons of cutting down Mabira, the costs outweigh the benefits. This is the only way the opposition can give the public an informed assessment of why they think the president's proposal is a bad idea.

In many ways therefore, Museveni still remains a strong policy president. Compared to him, the opposition look weak, unprepared, ignorant and confused on matters of national policy. Museveni's greatest disadvantage is the increasing personalisation of decision making. This projects him at his most arbitrary. But it also means that he takes decisions whose utility is not shared or understood by his colleagues in cabinet and parliament.

This places the president's supporters in a difficult position because they are forced to defend his decisions without having a coherently articulated justification. And when he is wrong, it creates suspicions about his motivations; it is difficult to explain why an intelligent president should make decisions that are blatantly illogical.