{UAH} Things fall apart, Mbabazi and Kadaga fall out, Amin slouches... - Comment - www.theeastafrican.co.ke

http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/comment/Things+fall+apart+Mbabazi+and+Kadaga+fall+out+Amin+slouches/-/434750/1983038/-/d02wynz/-/index.html

Things fall apart, Mbabazi and Kadaga fall out, Amin slouches... - Comment

It is one of those seasons when some Ugandans just miss good old Idi Amin. When all the news coming out of government is about top officials fighting each other, they talk nostalgically of the "man of few words and a lot of action."

One running quarrel that is institutional and not essentially personal is between Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi, who is the leader of government business, and parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga.

The executive is frustrated with "their" Speaker, who is from the ruling party but has taken quite a few decisions that have made government look bad.

She has allowed debate over oil contracts, allowed MPs who had been expelled from the ruling party to retain their seats, and almost recalled the House from recess to discuss the utterances of the president.

For these and other offences, she was reportedly labelled an opposition member by the prime minister. She in turn counselled the premier that under the multiparty dispensation, she is supposed to discharge her duties impartially.

One afternoon recently, the executive benches were practically empty during session, because no ministers had shown up, presumably because of yet another tiff between the Speaker and the premier.

Some peace talks were staged between the two recently but instead each side just adduced evidence that the other side is out to frustrate them.

The premier says the Speaker does not take his calls. The Speaker says the premier does not reply to her letters. Remember even the president complained that the Speaker sometimes does not pick up or return his calls.

Then debate over different ministry votes gets postponed because ministers do not show up. And according to the Speaker, they neither notify her nor designate a colleague to hold brief for them.

During the days of the military "government of action," such situations of paralysis arising out of fights between the executive and the legislature could not arise.

First of all, the two were fused into one. The top policy and lawmaking organ was the Defence Council, personally appointed by the president who also appointed the Cabinet. Also, there was no way the head of the legislature could refuse to pick up the president's call, because the two were one and the same person.

The life president was at the same time the chairman of the defence council, the head of state and also the anonymous military spokesman who made all the important pronouncements. Things worked smoothly.

Maybe we should accept that the model of Western democracy is not for us and revert to our old systems where policy, implementation and adjudication were all under one authority, the absolute monarch.

That way, Western powers would not pressurise us to act like they do, because our monarchical identity would be clear. Do you see them bothering Saudi Arabia about its women not being able to vote or to drive cars? Does anybody in Saudi Arabia vote anyway? And don't we also have oil now? Let's get ourselves a monarch, simple.

But he or she must not come from one of our tribes or religions, for obvious reasons. We could import an atheist chap from Djibouti or Spain...

Joachim Buwembo is a Knight International fellow for development journalism. E-mail: buwembo@gmail.com

Things fall apart, Mbabazi and Kadaga fall out, Amin slouches... - Comment - www.theeastafrican.co.ke
http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/comment/Things+fall+apart+Mbabazi+and+Kadaga+fall+out+Amin+slouches/-/434750/1983038/-/d02wynz/-/index.html