'Independents a threat to parties'

Political parties are unhappy with politicians running as independents. Some 1,102 independents are contesting for parliamentary seats against 1,022 flag-bearers. Previously seen as a National Resistance Movement (NRM) problem it is now worrying all political parties.

The Democratic Party (DP) has decided to suspend all party members who are running as independents. Speaking to the media last week, party president, Norbert Mao, said all independent candidates will be summoned to appear before a disciplinary tribunal to explain why they went against the party decision.

In effect, there are plans to punish all those competing against the party's candidates. Most of the candidates who are running as independents cite election malpractices during their parties' primaries as reason why they are running against their parties' candidates.

All the major political parties —NRM, DP, Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) and Uganda Peoples' Congress (UPC) have members who lost in party elections running as independents.

Although competing against the parties' candidates, the independents have neither denounced their parties nor renounced membership. Some even claim they still belong to the parties, which creates a problem because they are likely to benefit from voters who vote for the party and associate certain faces with the party.

It is possible that where voters link an independent to a party, having known him for being a member, they could easily vote him or her thinking they are the party representatives. This could be a calculated move by some of the independents.

A law barring politicians who contest in party primaries and later on run as independents after defeat would be the remedy. But this would be restrictive to the extent of violating one's right to contest for a political office. Inevitably political parties, in a bipartisan arrangement, will in future have to come together to find a solution. Short of that the independents will continue undermining multiparty democracy.

Whereas parties' flag bearers run on party tickets and consequently manifesto, the independents in actual sense contest on individual merit, which Ugandans tested during the movement political system era. According to the Constitution, one of the principles the movement political system conforms to is "individual merit as a basis for election to political offices."

Since the independents are not backed by the party, even when they claim to be, they are in effect running on individual merit. Therefore, it follows that during a multiparty dispensation Independents are a threat to parties because they carry on with some elements of the movement system.

The same Constitution does not state clearly that to contest for office under the multiparty political system one has to run on a party ticket. This gives a strong basis for independents which is further enhanced by the clause stating: "Any person is free to stand for an election as a candidate, independent of a political organisation or political party."

This raises fundamental questions: what if independents constitute the majority in Parliament and are unfriendly to the ruling party? What if all the independents leaning to the opposition got into Parliament and chose to ditch the opposition and cooperate with the ruling party?

Besides the independents who are elected, the party candidates, once in Parliament, may also choose to conduct themselves as independent. From the NRM rebel MPs' case the party expelled them for veering off its path but could not have them ejected from Parliament. Uganda's multiparty system sits on sinking sand. Independents can easily bring it down.

Looking back in Uganda's history there was a time when those opposed to the movement political system fiercely demanded for the multiparty political system. From the late 1980s until 2005 one call rang out. It was "open up the political space to allow political parties to participate openly and compete for power". At the time it seemed like Uganda under the movement political system (also known as the no-party democracy) had achieved a lot and what was left was freeing political parties for the country to be fully democratic.

Political parties had been restricted under Legal Notice 1 of 1986 following the NRM's rise to power and later the Constitution pending a referendum. At the time the NRM was a liberation organisation, which had developed a no-party democracy system to end the UPC-DP rivalries that had divided the country along ethnic and religious lines.

The no-party democracy system was later baptized the movement political system and provided that leaders were elected on individual merit and voting by lining behind the candidate. But both were criticised as undemocratic.

In the 2005 referendum as provided for in the Constitution, Ugandans decided in a referendum to adopt the multiparty political system. Today political parties exist, not worried about the no-party democracy but rather some features of it manifesting in the independents.

The question is how will political parties deal with the independents in future?