{UAH} KADAGA - THE PROBLEM IS YOUR PARTY

 

 

 

Kadaga, the real problem is your party, not parties

Columnists

Thursday, 05 June 2014 21:53

Written by MOSES KHISA

15 Comments

On Monday, The Observer quoted Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga wishing for a return to the "good old days" of the Movement system. For the benefit of readers who may not know what is at stake here, a brief historical note is in order.

From 1986 to 2005, a record 20 years, political parties in Uganda were banned by fiat under Legal Notice No 1 of 1986. The ban was later strengthened under the 1995 Constitution. In the place of a multiparty system, we had something called the Movement system. It was ostensibly a 'no-party' arrangement but which in practice was a single-party system.

The Movement system had two guiding principles. First, 'individual merit', meaning that contesting for political office was not based on any particular political platform. and second, 'multi-ideological', a rather dubious claim that the Movement was welcoming of all political persuasions. In practice though, whoever joined the Movement had to jettison his/her original political affiliation and demonstrate true cadre-ship to NRM or they risked being sacked.

The principle of 'individual merit' appeared brilliant on paper. In practice, however, political leaders who held dissenting views or who didn't follow the 'correct line', as Dr Olivia Kobusingye has cogently argued, were labelled 'multipartysts".

So, throughout the Movement years, even though in law all Ugandans were Movementists, in practice, some were NRM while others were multipartysts. Those speaking the language of NRM had unfettered access to state resources. They freely engaged in politics while those identified as multipartysts were gagged and repressed.

By the time of the first general elections in 1996, we had a fully established party-state, the NRM, operating under a system called the Movement. This monolithic system is what the respected speaker of today's Parliament wants us to revert to.

Apparently, that system allowed for free debate in the House, as MPs were not constrained by the rules and wishes of any political party. But Ms Kadaga is being disingenuous, for, as minister for Parliamentary Affairs between 1999 and 2001, she knows too well that Parliament and its members operated under the dictates of the Executive.

Worse, during the supposedly good days, we had an NRM caucus. It was a partisan body under a supposedly 'no-party' system. It met and adopted positions before MPs debated them on the floor of Parliament.

So, the claim that MPs debated more freely under the Movement individual merit system than they do under the current multiparty system is utterly misleading. Gagging vocal MPs did not start with the formal return to multiparty politics in 2006; it may have as well started with the expanded NRC in 1989.

The Movement system that Ms Kadaga wants the country to revert to preached one thing and practiced another; it provided for non-partisan politics in law but allowed the NRM to operate as the only party. Other parties were banned because, apparently, multipartyism was bad for Uganda!

Now, coming from someone touted to lead the nation in the near future, someone currently heading, by far, the most important branch of a modern democratic state, the legislature, Kadaga's comments are disconcerting. Is there any principle of multiparty politics that requires political parties to gag their members of parliament? Kadaga is concerned that NRM MPs can't express their views freely; that they can't meaningfully contribute to debates on the floor of Parliament. But she is not telling us if this applies to opposition parties too, or if it obtains in other multiparty systems across the border in Kenya or Benin or Senegal.

The problem we have in Uganda is not that there is multiparty politics. In fact, the real problem is that there is no functional party system because the ruling party is not, strictly speaking, a functioning political party. Rather, the NRM is like a warped government department, most plausibly operating under the ministry for the presidency.

Its key meetings are conducted and decisions are passed at State House Entebbe, not at its headquarters in Nakasero. It is funded and its MPs facilitated, most probably, by the national treasury because the NRM has no known source of revenue to run its activities.

Ms Kadaga, needless to say, is also the NRM national vice chairperson for Eastern Uganda. So, rather than wishing for a return to a glorious past, that never existed in the first place, Kadaga should be working at making NRM a political party and help the country attain genuine multiparty politics.

Having political parties and a multiparty system is no guarantee for a functioning democracy; you can have multiparty politics under an authoritarian system, which is precisely what we have in Uganda today. But democracy without political parties is a farce.

The NRM idea of 'no-party democracy' was not just an oxymoron but a travesty of the universal value of democratic governance. A national leader, in the 21st century, who does not appreciate this basic principle, is probably not up to the task.

moses.khisa@gmail.com

The author is a PhD candidate in Political Science at Northwestern University, Evanston/Chicago-USA

 

J.N Munyoganda