In the African traditional set-up, the relatives of a polygamous man's first wife were unlikely to curry any favour with the other wives if they ignored them.
Recently, top Kenyan politicians among them vice-president Kalonzo Musyoka are playing the role of those relatives with regard to Uganda. They have enthusiastically been exalting President Yoweri Museveni during visits to Uganda--during when they have made no mention of the opposition parties.
"Mr Museveni has done the job [of Head of State] very well and that is why I came to show solidarity," Mr Musyoka told Ugandan independent daily Saturday Monitor in a January 14 interview.
Uganda is holding general elections next month, with some 13.9 million voters having signed up for the February 18 poll.
The campaigns have gone down to the wire with each of the eight presidential candidates, including Mr Museveni who is seeking to extend his uninterrupted rule to 30 years, frantically wooing voters and allies.
During the 2001 and 2006 presidential elections, unproven allegations that the Rwanda government supported Dr Kizza Besigye, the present joint Inter-Party Cooperation flag-bearer, visibly cooled diplomatic relations between Kigali and Kampala.
For the Museveni’s ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM), in nothing untoward in Ms Rebecca Nyandeng, the widow of SPLM/A leader John Garang canvassing for votes for the president in 2006.
Such is the contradiction and sometimes fury in this unpredictable country that prominent Kenyan politicians have courted controversy by stepping into Kampala's murky political waters.
Highly-rated
Mr Museveni is highly rated in Kenya, a marked contradiction to his domestic scorecard which frequently comes in for sustained criticism.
Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, now flying high as the AU's mediator in the Ivorian crisis, previously joined the Ugandan leader on the campaign trail in December in the country's eastern Busoga region.
Mr Musyoka weighed in a few weeks later while Mr Museveni was out in the west.
In November 2010, suspended minister and one of those named by the International Criminal Court as responsible for the 2007 post-election violence in Kenya, William Ruto, was in Kampala to attend the launch of the ruling NRM party's campaign manifesto.
Mr Ruto had apparently been invited as a friend of the party and of Mr Museveni.
In the same month, former Kenyan president Daniel Arap Moi was a private guest of Mr Museveni for three days, although it is understood they spoke more about the just-concluded southern Sudan referendum and regional security than sharing political survival tips.
Mr Moi's son Gideon, who leads a faction of the dormant Kenya African National Union (Kanu) party, is among a clutch of Nairobi politicians reported to have campaigned for the NRM.
So what is their interest in Ugandan politics?
Alliances
Diplomats in Kampala, who preferred not to be named, say the reasons vary with each Kenyan actor.
Mr Odinga, who waved to Mr Museveni’s supporters without explicitly telling them to vote the man in, sees himself as Kenya’s next President.
The two men have not been the best of friends, though. In the wake of Kenya’s disputed 2007 election, Mr Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) claimed President Museveni had interfered on behalf of the incumbent President Mwai Kibaki, though no hard evidence of actual support has ever materialised.
More recently, the WikiLeaks exposes alleged a strange tale whereby President Museveni is ostensibly concerned about an Odinga plot to build a Luo ‘empire’ incorporating his own Nyanza region and northern Uganda, as well as southern Sudan.
It is intriguing that Mr Odinga joined Mr Museveni on the campaign trail just days before whistle-blower website, WikiLeaks, publicised the apparent mistrust between the two men.
When President Museveni attended the promulgation of Kenya’s new constitution on August 4, a section of suspected pro-Odinga ODM party supporters heckled him.
They did that because they consider President Museveni, who was the first foreign leader to congratulate President Kibaki upon his controversial victory, somehow had a hand in the troubling events of the time.
With Mr Odinga positioning himself for the 2012 elections, pundits argue, it pays to make amends and that is why the two leaders discussed regional issues such as fast-tracking the East African political federation and promoting trade.
Uganda is mulling over exporting locally-manufactured anti-retroviral drugs to Kenya with a view to correcting the trade imbalance between the east African neighbours.
In secret
It has emerged that Uganda and Kenya have secretly agreed to start the political federation so that other reluctant member countries, especially an "overly cautious" Tanzania, can join at a later stage as it happened with the formation of the 27-member European Union.
By so doing, the two countries will be in compliance with the bloc’s established principle of 'variable geometry'.
However, substantive discussions on the matter, focusing mainly on finance, foreign policy and defence, are expected to be expedited during the upcoming April EAC Heads of State extra-ordinary meeting.
The gathering will consider a report of the committee of eminent persons which drafted the blue-print on political federation prospects and challenges.
Mr Museveni, one of the longest-serving African leaders, is the de facto elder statesman in the region. His involvement in the EAC since its rejuvenation in 1999 makes him a reference for peers, partly explaining why Kenyan politicians have been queuing up to see him.
During his visit, Mr Musyoka delivered to his host President Kibaki’s message seeking Uganda’s support for Kenya’s proposal to locally try six of its top politicians named by the International Criminal Court in connection with the 2007 post-election killings.
It is understood the matter is due for discussion during the January 31-April 1 African Union summit in Addis Ababa.
Whichever way the influx of Kenyan leaders is looked at, Uganda's opposition has been increasingly jittery that their appearance on the campaign trail with their rival amounts to interference in the politics of a sovereign state.
Relations between the two neighbours could as well be on the rocks if President Museveni were to lose next month’s vote--a long shot-- making a case for regional politicians staying away from neighbouring countrys' internal politics.
By: Tabu Butagira (African Review)
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