If the Ugandan authorities set out to show how powerful they are, no one, if ever there was anyone, is in any doubt about what power they have.

If their intention was to show what they are capable of where brute force is what is required, they did that clearly.

If what they wanted people to understand was that they are as capable of putting an end to chaos as they are of fomenting it, that is also now clear, or clearer.

But if they also believed that their actions would impress members of the public, they got that wrong. Judging by the chorus of condemnation coming from Ugandans at home and abroad, they are anything but impressed.

What they got is a massive thumbs-down, including from foreign observers who were watching the horrors unfolding on their television screens. And so now all that the powers-that-be have is egg on their faces. It has been a spectacular own goal in PR terms. Few in President Yoweri Museveni’s government seem to have understood this better than he himself.

At the time of writing, he had released multiple press statements, all written in his now familiar style, in which he sought to explain the situation to, among others, his “grandchildren.”

A notable “grandchild” specifically referred to is Member of Parliament Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine, who was still being held in a military facility. It all sounded as if the president believed that the violence had turned Ugandans into one big happy family.

After watching and reading about all the mayhem ignited by a minor electoral event in a remote corner of Uganda last week, I asked a friend in Kampala what he thought was going on.

Of course I knew what was going on. Print and electronic media were churning out their reports, some with by-the-minute images, of people being flogged mercilessly by men – I did not see any women – in uniform, others in civilian attire, armed with guns and sticks.

One image showed a soldier using a pair of pliers, which, media were reporting, he was using to pull bits of flesh from a man cowering under the seat of a police pick-up truck. It is not unusual in such circumstances to pose such a question in pursuit of some kind of explanation for whatever may be happening.

My friend’s response was swift. In the case of Bobi Wine, the violence inflicted on him was apparently “revenge,” which was also aimed at “downsizing” him.

One could debate the revenge aspect. The idea of downsizing, however, should be clear enough to anyone who has been watching and following, even without paying too much attention, the emergence of Bobi Wine the politician.

Up until barely two years ago, Bobi Wine was known for his music, of which I am a big fan, and perhaps a bit of rowdiness here and there. And then he started becoming political, and was finally elected a Member of Parliament, after trouncing ruling party and opposition candidates in a riveting by-election.

From then on, he has shown a notable ability to rally the masses in ways major opposition figures have hitherto failed to do. While they, too, draw massive crowds, he does a bit more than just attracting people to listen to him.

After listening, they do as he asks: They vote the way he tells them to. Which explains why candidates that attract his support and take him along on the campaign trail usually win.

If there is anything the massively dominant ruling party does not take well, it is defeat. And so they usually fight dirty if that is what it will take to win.

But they also do not take kindly to anyone fighting back. And fight back with words that only a talented musician or poet can muster and physically if need be, is one thing Bobi Wine knows how to do.

Young voters especially, already angry and frustrated with a government that won’t do enough to fight corruption, improve the quality of public administration and services or create jobs, simply love the way he stands up to the “bullies.”

That is how he has become quite a problem for the powers that be, and therefore the need to downsize him. The question is whether the recent beatings and possibly more to come will achieve this objective.

Already the ruling party’s prophets and fortune-tellers have been dismissing him as a passing cloud that will dissipate quickly and that therefore he is “no threat.” Their analysis also included asking whether he has the qualities to be president.

Well, the man himself has not yet said he has presidential ambitions. That individuals within the ruling party are raising the issue is possibly indicative of their own pre-occupation than of his ambitions.

Be that as it may, it is now clear that, even without aspiring to become president, Bobi Wine is able to take a massive chunk of the electorate with him to whichever candidate he chooses to support, even for presidential elections. And it seems as if by beating and humiliating him, the powers that be are only enhancing, not diminishing, his appeal.

Frederick Golooba-Mutebi is a Kampala- and Kigali-based researcher and writer on politics and public affairs. E-mail: [email protected]