The NRM’s no-party democracy was an oxymoron. With hindsight, it was a ploy to consolidate a grip on power while obliterating spaces for alternative political organization.
In 2005, those who had stridently sold this political gimmick conveniently made a turnaround to campaign for multiparty politics. But the ghosts of individualism are still wrecking us.
Last week’s electoral victory of musician Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine, in the parliamentary by-election for Kyadondo East set off inordinate media coverage and animated talk. This by-election’s aftermath underlined our knack for rushed conclusions and the tendency for unreflective euphoria.
Somehow, at least according to former presidential candidate Kizza Besigye, this lone election should lead us to sweepingly conclude that Ugandans are not interested in political parties but individuals who represent their interests.
The post-election excitement would lead a visitor to Uganda to think Mr Kyagulanyi has taken over parliament and is on course to ably implement a revolutionary vision!
Kyagulanyi’s victory is undoubtedly a slap in the face of the main opposition party, Forum for Democratic Party (FDC), whose seat it was to lose. But it is a trifle intriguing that several opposition leaders have outdone each other in praising the successful independent candidate and overtly pouring scorn on political parties.
Which might suggest that although they appeared at rallies to ostensibly campaign for the FDC candidate, in reality some opposition leaders covertly lent their support and resources to Kyagulanyi!
In the debate over whether parties are important and relevant in today’s Uganda, Dr Besigye has exhibited a rather disingenuous stance. It just doesn’t add up to disparage parties yet turn up to seek nomination of a party to run for president.
It is one thing to make a case for political parties to unite in the struggle to bring an end to the decadent NRM rule – this is a perfectly sound argument. But is it is quite another to say parties are unhelpful in our circumstances. The latter, which is a rather self-serving stance, is no different from the rationale for the way a monolithic movement system was justified and helped in the making of a presidential monarch.
We can’t have it both ways. If we believe in genuine democracy, we can’t look at political parties as an unnecessary imposition. We may well have to discard the very idea of pretending to want democratic government. Organized political competition is a central pillar to free and fair political competition, and ultimately to the deepening of democratic governance.
Parties are vehicles for interest articulation and aggregation. They are crucial in assuring accountability and countering individual excesses. It is imprudent to build democracy on the whims and idiosyncrasies of individuals. We tried it under the so-called Movement; in the end, we reaped today’s culture of political entrepreneurs out for an income from politics and deal-making for earning a quick fortune.
It is arguable that rather than political buccaneering by individual merchants of politics, organized and institutionalized politics present a better bet for the long term. Historically, long-surviving democracies world over have been built on strong and credible political parties. To say that you need to discard parties to achieve democracy is to say that democracy will produce parties yet it is parties that midwife democracy.
At any rate, there seems to be a misleading representation of what has gone awry with parties and elections in Uganda. For starters, it is hardly true that Ugandans don’t support political parties. To the contrary, successive surveys by the Afrobarometer research project show that majority Ugandans feel attached to one political party or the other.
Second, although the phenomenon of independent parliamentary candidates has persisted during successive elections, it has to be explained in a more rigorous way other than the simplistic conclusion that voters prefer to vote individuals than parties. It is known that majority parliamentary aspirants, especially in the rural areas, see seeking the NRM ticket as the sure way to parliament.
Many who lose in the party primaries are reportedly covertly supported by State House against official party candidates, who are seen as potentially problematic in the grand scheme of life-presidency. Thus, a sizeable fraction of independent MPs are in any case allied to NRM, having been supported by the powerful amongst our rulers.
In all, the rush for the NRM flag is less about belief in NRM and more about benefiting from the state apparatus and avoiding being blackmailed, with the argument that once elected as an opposition MP, one can’t work with government and, therefore, cannot take services and resources to his/her constituency.
In effect, voters are told to vote NRM or, at worst, an independent candidate, and not any other party. So, at root is not parties as an approach to politics; rather, it is the distortion of the role of an MP and the deliberate misrepresentation of the relationship between government and opposition.
As I have argued in these pages before, it is not that there is anything particularly wrong with the idea and practice of organized politics; it is that those in power and sections of their counterpart in opposition are selfishly wary of a well-functioning party system.
moses.khisa@gmail.com
The author is the interim secretary, Society for Justice and National Unity, a Kampala-based think-tank.