ONAPITO EKOMOLOIT TO THE POINT: POB Boycott Is Dead-End Game

EVEN if we agreed with multi-party advocates in the country that the Political Parties and Organizations Bill (POB) was rigged — of course it was not — their threat not to comply with it will be counter-productive.It should be very clear to multi-partyists that since the advent of the Movement in 1986, they have covered lesser ground than they might have, if it were not for their previous ill-advised so-called boycotts.Before going into the chronology of the dismal boycott achievements of multi-partyists, it is worth noting that boycotts in general really do not work.Just like economic sanctions, boycotts fail because it only takes a certain number to ignore them and the whole essence collapses. The only exception is when what is being boycotted is as abominable as the defeated apartheid system in South Africa.Sanctions premised on narrow interests, such as the U.S. led embargoes against Cuba, Libya and Iraq, have fallen flat on their faces because the level of defiance is always enough to keep the targets of boycotts alive and kicking.During the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union alternately often incited boycotts of Olympic Games held in either the other’s sphere of influence. The Olympic boycotts, however, never dented the games, which remain the world’s largest sports gala.Even explicitly political boycotts, like in Algeria a few years ago, when all other presidential candidates withdrew in protest at the eleventh hour, leaving only Abdelaziz Boutafilka, have glaringly failed.The Algerian boycotters lost miserably in their objective of discrediting Boutafilka’s presidency, when he emerged with stunning international recognition to the extent of becoming the chairman of the Organisation of African Unity (OUA) shortly after being elected.In Uganda, it is a taller order for the multi-partyists in their attempts to shun Movement initiatives principally because the people are not with them. Subsequently, it has always been too late, too little for the multi-partyists as they wake up to the reality of a possible chance gone by.As early as 1989, when the National Resistance Council (NRC) was expanded, some Movement opponents, especially the Milton Obote adherents, swore they would not touch Movement politics even with the longest spoon.They extended their feeble resistance to participation in the Constituent Assembly (CA) election of 1994, with Obote blacklisting the likes of Cecilia Ogwal, who joined the constitution making body in the name of his Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC).But even multi-partyists who joined the CA did not help their cause by storming out at some stages and refusing to sign the promulgated constitution. By this action, they purported to declare the 1995 Constitution null and void.Yet we all know that they have since worshipped the same constitution, to the point of evoking it repeatedly to challenge the Movement in court — sometimes successfully.It is also ironical that while by 1996 the Obotes of this country were chastising other multi-partyists for participating in Movement politics, by the time of the 2001/02 elections they had made a dramatic U-turn. They advised all their kind to join and fight from within.Of course, they were waxing on the illusion that the rise of Besigye showed the Movement was crumbling within, and it was time for a coup de grace. But alas!Needless to say, the biggest flop in the multi-partyists boycotts was the 2000 referendum. Knowing that they had no chance anyway against the Movement, multi-partyists played the ostrich and purported to boycott the plebiscite. To their dismay, the majority of Ugandans simply moved on and pronounced themselves in favour of the Movement. Clearly, the boycott thing is a no-win game for multi-partyists, and they should spare themselves more damage by not playing antics with the POB. They will have only themselves to blame, if they remain party-less at the hour of reckoning.Fortunately, for the usual suspects — UPC, Democratic Party (DP) and Conservative Party (CP) — they are preserved by provisions of the new, albeit in their dinosaur state. Still they will need to meet certain requirements of the POB to get a new lease of life.But those rearing to form new parties should be wary of the frontline posturing of the old parties against the POB. Knowing that their existence is guaranteed, it is likely that the old parties want to obscure the advantages of the POB from the new parties. Ends