Political families, Republican virtue, and the search for legitimacy

Odrek Rwabogo’s remarks have reopened a debate that has accompanied every republic since antiquity. “Nobody can rule guiltlessly.” — Louis Antoine de Saint-Just COMMENT | ANDREW PI BESI | y their very design, modern families are intriguing institutions. They are repositories of affection, obligation and ambition.

At their best, they cultivate decency, continuity and purpose. At their worst, they are theatres of rivalry, entitlement and disruption. In the tradition of Mpororo, as in all of South-Western Uganda, the family has long been understood through the obligation to preserve and expand a bloodline within the larger fraternity of the clan.

Individual achievement matters, but it is ultimately judged by whether it strengthens the lineage that produced it. It is perhaps for that reason that the intersection between family and political power fascinates me. It is a play on what has confronted every civilisation: where does legitimate influence end and dynastic ambition begin?

Early on the morning of Monday, 27 July, my X feed was inundated with an audio recording purportedly featuring Odrek Rwabogo. Speaking calmly and deliberately, he reflected on what he described as decades of work dedicated to the socio-economic transformation of Kiruhura and the wider Ankole region. He rejected allegations levelled against him by individuals aligned with a political pressure group based in the affluent Kampala neighbourhood of Naguru, arguing that his work should be judged on its own merits rather than through political prejudice.

Whether one agrees with Rwabogo or not is almost beside the point. His remarks have reopened one of the oldest debates in political history: Can members of influential families ever escape the weight of their surnames? Can citizens separate merit from ancestry?

And when does suspicion of inherited influence become just as unfair as blind loyalty to it? More than two thousand years ago, the Greek Aristotle observed in Politics that man is, by nature, a political animal. He did not mean simply that human beings enjoy elections or debate but rather that our first political education occurs within the household.