Multipartyism still alien to Ugandans
Apr 09, 2011
WHEN Democratic Party’s Betty Nambooze campaigned for Kizza Besigye for the presidency against her own party leader, Norbert Mao, it was a symptom of a disease affecting many Ugandans.
WHEN Democratic Party’s Betty Nambooze campaigned for Kizza Besigye for the presidency against her own party leader, Norbert Mao, it was a symptom of a disease affecting many Ugandans. John Semakula analyses Uganda’s elective politics since 2005.
Prior to 2005, under the individual merit system, Ugandans voted for anyone they liked, regardless of their political affiliations.
In 2005, a referendum was organised to determine whether Ugandans wanted a multi-party system and Ugandans chose the system.
But the last two elections held under the multi-party system have shown that many Ugandans still base their voting on individual merit.
Leaders of the political parties also failed to unite their supporters for a common cause.
President Yoweri Museveni had argued that Uganda was not ready for multiparty politics. He reasoned that in a country where social classes and interest groups are not developed, the multi-party system would polarise the society along ethnic and religious lines.
Uganda had operated under the individual merit all inclusive broad-based Movement system since 1986 when the National Resistance Movemnet (NRM) came to power.
So when multipartsim was re-introduced, politicians and voters revealed their limited understanding of the concept, especially during the elections of 2006 and 2011.
In the presidential elections of 2006, outgoing Kampala Mayor Hajji Ntege Sebaggala, chose to back Col. Kizza Besigye of the Forum Democratic Change (FDC) party. This was at the expense of John Ssebaana Kizito, his party’s flag-bearer.
Sebaggala and a few other people in DP wanted the party to ally with FDC, to take on the ruling party’s flag-bearer, Yoweri Museveni.
The clique that wanted DP to go for the elections on its own backed Ssebaana, but divisions in the party resulted in a miserable loss for him even in Kampala, where he had previously won the mayoral elections with a significant margin.
Most of the DP supporters who went against the party’s position, like Sebaggala and Michael Mabikke who was contesting for the Makindye East MP seat ended up contesting as independent candidates.
The FDC camp was equally unprepared for the vagaries of multipartism, because leaders got embroiled in power wrangles.
Under a multiparty political dispensation, the region where the party has its stronghold takes the lion’s share when it comes to filling leadership positions.
But some of the FDC leaders, who hailed from the regions where the party leader, Col. Kizza Besigye, had not performed well in the 2001 presidential elections, were pushing for senior positions in the executive.
For example, Beti Kamya, who was one of the party’s senior officials, fought bitterly to become the party’s secretary general. But many of the party’s leaders were in support of Alice Alaso from Teso, where Besigye had garnered a big number of votes.
Kamya claimed she had been sidelined. Kamya had fought for Besigye during the rough times before, during and after the 2001 presidential elections and had anticipated a reward by being appointed to the seat.
In 2008, when the party’s chairman Hajji Suleiman Kiggundu passed away, Kamya again expected to replace him as the chairperson and when party officials blocked her, she had bitter exchanges with party officials, within meetings and in the media. The party accused her of spreading harmful propaganda against the party and she was expelled.
Although Kamya had done wrong, expelling her was not a wise decision for FDC, because she had a lot of influence, especially in the central region and the party had benefited from her contribution.
Kamya’s anger and the party’s decision to expel her reflected that respective parties needed more time to understand the system.
FDC’s poor performance in the 2011 general elections was partly as a result of the party losing good mobilisers and leaders like Kamya.
Also, renowned female party supporters like Nabila Naggayi, the Kampala Woman MP, Sarah Epelu and others accused party leaders of trying to bring them down.
UPC had similar battles during the 2006 general elections. Whereas political parties are supposed to be national in character, some people in UPC turned the party into a family business.
When the family of Milton Obote, the UPC founder, returned from exile, they grabbed the leadership of the party and sidelined senior officials.
This confirmed Museveni’s argument that people who didn’t understand how multipartism operated would build parties based on family, tribe and religion.
Family ties outweighed the demand to give UPC a national character and Miria, Obote’s widow, was elected its flag-bearer.
This saw people like Dr. James Rwanyarare, who had been vocal in the party before Obote’s family returned, sidelined.
However, the disunity did not favour Miria and the party in the new political dispensation and it was little wonder that her performance was miserably poor.
Meanwhile, as conflicts hit the opposition, the NRM camp was calm and more organised. This was evident in the huge number of seats it won at all levels in 2006.
However, there were rivalries and wrangles within the party. Some people who felt the party had rigged them out of elections stood as independents and won.
In 2010, the party moved to sort the wrangles by abolishing voting by electoral colleges to adult suffrage during the primaries.
This was expected to be fairer and free from abuse by powerful politicians who would hitherto use electoral colleges for their selfish interests.
However, this brought bitter rivalries too. There was widespread malpractices that pitied NRM leaders against each other. In some areas, there was violence, while contenders like Lwemiyaga county MP Theodore Sekikubo kicked and threw ballot boxes, in addition to manhandling election staff. He accused them of trying to rig for his opponent, Patrick Nkalubo.
There was also a serious battle between water state minister Jennifer Namuyangu and Saleh Kamba for the Kibuku MP seat. Reports indicate that they even drew guns at each other during the elections.
In the DP camp, factions had emerged in the party between those who supported the party flag-bearer Norbert Mao and those who were opposed to him, like Betty Nambooze, the Mukono Municipality MP and Erias Lukwago, the Kampala mayor-elect.
Those who were opposed to Mao’s leadership backed Besigye, which contributed to DP’s poor performance.
In UPC, when former UN under Secretary Olara Otunnu was elected the party’s flag-bearer, beating Obote’s son, Jimmy Akena, many of the party’s influential leaders deserted him. It was, therefore, no surprise that a group of UPC supporters led by Badru Wegulo and Peter Mayega crossed over to NRM and backed President Museveni.
Parties were characterised by in-fighting and mudslinging. Little wonder that when it came to elections, voting was still done on individual merit.
That explains why Museveni won in areas where the opposition parliamentarians had overwhelming support. For instance in Sironko district, where FDC swept parliamentary and local council seats, Museveni garnered 52.71% of the votes cast, while Besigye got 46.05% of the votes.
In Bukomansimbi, where DP took all the parliamentary seats, Museveni got 59.42% of the votes against DP’s 4.97%.
A big number of parliamentary seats in Kampala were taken by the opposition although residents voted Museveni in big numbers.
Internationally, in politically mature democracies, the results of the presidential elections normally match the parliamentary and local government elections.
Abdu Katuntu of FDC won significantly in Bugweri county, Iganga a stronghold of NRM where NRM’s Yoweri Museveni scored 69.82% of the votes.
In Buikwe South Constituency, Museveni won overwhelmingly, but the voters chose Lulume Bayiga, a DP candidate, against NRM flag-bearer.
Prior to 2005, under the individual merit system, Ugandans voted for anyone they liked, regardless of their political affiliations.
In 2005, a referendum was organised to determine whether Ugandans wanted a multi-party system and Ugandans chose the system.
But the last two elections held under the multi-party system have shown that many Ugandans still base their voting on individual merit.
Leaders of the political parties also failed to unite their supporters for a common cause.
President Yoweri Museveni had argued that Uganda was not ready for multiparty politics. He reasoned that in a country where social classes and interest groups are not developed, the multi-party system would polarise the society along ethnic and religious lines.
Uganda had operated under the individual merit all inclusive broad-based Movement system since 1986 when the National Resistance Movemnet (NRM) came to power.
So when multipartsim was re-introduced, politicians and voters revealed their limited understanding of the concept, especially during the elections of 2006 and 2011.
In the presidential elections of 2006, outgoing Kampala Mayor Hajji Ntege Sebaggala, chose to back Col. Kizza Besigye of the Forum Democratic Change (FDC) party. This was at the expense of John Ssebaana Kizito, his party’s flag-bearer.
Sebaggala and a few other people in DP wanted the party to ally with FDC, to take on the ruling party’s flag-bearer, Yoweri Museveni.
The clique that wanted DP to go for the elections on its own backed Ssebaana, but divisions in the party resulted in a miserable loss for him even in Kampala, where he had previously won the mayoral elections with a significant margin.
Most of the DP supporters who went against the party’s position, like Sebaggala and Michael Mabikke who was contesting for the Makindye East MP seat ended up contesting as independent candidates.
The FDC camp was equally unprepared for the vagaries of multipartism, because leaders got embroiled in power wrangles.
Under a multiparty political dispensation, the region where the party has its stronghold takes the lion’s share when it comes to filling leadership positions.
But some of the FDC leaders, who hailed from the regions where the party leader, Col. Kizza Besigye, had not performed well in the 2001 presidential elections, were pushing for senior positions in the executive.
For example, Beti Kamya, who was one of the party’s senior officials, fought bitterly to become the party’s secretary general. But many of the party’s leaders were in support of Alice Alaso from Teso, where Besigye had garnered a big number of votes.
Kamya claimed she had been sidelined. Kamya had fought for Besigye during the rough times before, during and after the 2001 presidential elections and had anticipated a reward by being appointed to the seat.
In 2008, when the party’s chairman Hajji Suleiman Kiggundu passed away, Kamya again expected to replace him as the chairperson and when party officials blocked her, she had bitter exchanges with party officials, within meetings and in the media. The party accused her of spreading harmful propaganda against the party and she was expelled.
Although Kamya had done wrong, expelling her was not a wise decision for FDC, because she had a lot of influence, especially in the central region and the party had benefited from her contribution.
Kamya’s anger and the party’s decision to expel her reflected that respective parties needed more time to understand the system.
FDC’s poor performance in the 2011 general elections was partly as a result of the party losing good mobilisers and leaders like Kamya.
Also, renowned female party supporters like Nabila Naggayi, the Kampala Woman MP, Sarah Epelu and others accused party leaders of trying to bring them down.
UPC had similar battles during the 2006 general elections. Whereas political parties are supposed to be national in character, some people in UPC turned the party into a family business.
When the family of Milton Obote, the UPC founder, returned from exile, they grabbed the leadership of the party and sidelined senior officials.
This confirmed Museveni’s argument that people who didn’t understand how multipartism operated would build parties based on family, tribe and religion.
Family ties outweighed the demand to give UPC a national character and Miria, Obote’s widow, was elected its flag-bearer.
This saw people like Dr. James Rwanyarare, who had been vocal in the party before Obote’s family returned, sidelined.
However, the disunity did not favour Miria and the party in the new political dispensation and it was little wonder that her performance was miserably poor.
Meanwhile, as conflicts hit the opposition, the NRM camp was calm and more organised. This was evident in the huge number of seats it won at all levels in 2006.
However, there were rivalries and wrangles within the party. Some people who felt the party had rigged them out of elections stood as independents and won.
In 2010, the party moved to sort the wrangles by abolishing voting by electoral colleges to adult suffrage during the primaries.
This was expected to be fairer and free from abuse by powerful politicians who would hitherto use electoral colleges for their selfish interests.
However, this brought bitter rivalries too. There was widespread malpractices that pitied NRM leaders against each other. In some areas, there was violence, while contenders like Lwemiyaga county MP Theodore Sekikubo kicked and threw ballot boxes, in addition to manhandling election staff. He accused them of trying to rig for his opponent, Patrick Nkalubo.
There was also a serious battle between water state minister Jennifer Namuyangu and Saleh Kamba for the Kibuku MP seat. Reports indicate that they even drew guns at each other during the elections.
In the DP camp, factions had emerged in the party between those who supported the party flag-bearer Norbert Mao and those who were opposed to him, like Betty Nambooze, the Mukono Municipality MP and Erias Lukwago, the Kampala mayor-elect.
Those who were opposed to Mao’s leadership backed Besigye, which contributed to DP’s poor performance.
In UPC, when former UN under Secretary Olara Otunnu was elected the party’s flag-bearer, beating Obote’s son, Jimmy Akena, many of the party’s influential leaders deserted him. It was, therefore, no surprise that a group of UPC supporters led by Badru Wegulo and Peter Mayega crossed over to NRM and backed President Museveni.
Parties were characterised by in-fighting and mudslinging. Little wonder that when it came to elections, voting was still done on individual merit.
That explains why Museveni won in areas where the opposition parliamentarians had overwhelming support. For instance in Sironko district, where FDC swept parliamentary and local council seats, Museveni garnered 52.71% of the votes cast, while Besigye got 46.05% of the votes.
In Bukomansimbi, where DP took all the parliamentary seats, Museveni got 59.42% of the votes against DP’s 4.97%.
A big number of parliamentary seats in Kampala were taken by the opposition although residents voted Museveni in big numbers.
Internationally, in politically mature democracies, the results of the presidential elections normally match the parliamentary and local government elections.
Abdu Katuntu of FDC won significantly in Bugweri county, Iganga a stronghold of NRM where NRM’s Yoweri Museveni scored 69.82% of the votes.
In Buikwe South Constituency, Museveni won overwhelmingly, but the voters chose Lulume Bayiga, a DP candidate, against NRM flag-bearer.