ANALYSIS
Uganda's NRM keeps a firm grip on power while opposition parties implode.
In the early years of African independence, military regimes and
single-party dictatorships ruled most of the continent's countries.
Competitive elections were rare.
From the early 1960s to the end of the 70s, only about 55 elections
were held in Africa, averaging three per year, wrote American political
scientists Daniel Posner and Daniel Young in 2007 in the Journal of Democracy. Most of these were not competitive, multi-party polls; they were merely referenda that served to endorse autocratic rule.
Incumbent parties and their leaders won all these elections with the
exception of Somalia's first president, Aden Abdullah Osman, who lost to
Abdirashid Ali Shermarke in 1967. (Mr Osman set the record as the first
African president to step down peacefully after serving two terms.)
A slight improvement took place in the 1980s, with about 36 African
elections, or 3.6 per year. Only one incumbent party lost, in Mauritius,
in 1982.
In the next decade, a wave of democratisation in Eastern Europe set
in motion a renewed push for competitive party politics in Africa. From
1990 through to 2005, Africa held more than 100 elections, averaging
nearly seven elections each year.
Currently, at least ten elections are held in Africa every year. Yet
one constant remains: a weak opposition and dominant ruling parties. The
latter still win 80% of all elections held.
Opposition parties' victories in national elections have been few and
scattered--in Benin and Zambia in 1991, Ghana in 2000 and 2008, Kenya
in 2002, Côte d'Ivoire in 2010, Senegal in 2012, Zambia again in 2012,
and Malawi in May 2014.
Uganda is an unambiguous example of a single-party system and a weak
and fragmented opposition. The country's experience with multi-party
politics is tenuous.
From independence in 1962 to the capture of power by Yoweri
Museveni's guerrilla rebels in 1986, only one multi-party election was
held: in 1980, when Milton Obote's Uganda People's Congress (UPC)
defeated the Democratic Party (DP) and the Uganda Patriotic Movement
(UPM) in a highly disputed election.
Since 1986, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) has maintained a
firm grip on power. Its chairman, Mr Museveni, now 70, will be running
for a record fifth five-year term in 2016. Having ruled unelected up to
1996, Mr Museveni's combined stay in power by 2016 will total 30 years,
making him one of Africa's longest-ruling authoritarian leaders.
In a rather bloated national legislature of 385 seats, including
unelected members of cabinet, the ruling party holds an absolute
majority of 295 backed by a few dozen independents. The combined
opposition has only 60 members of Parliament (MPs). This dominance is
duplicated at the local, district and sub-county levels.
Mr Museveni has exploited legal and extra-legal manoeuvres to cripple
opposition to his increasingly authoritarian rule. Shortly after
assuming the presidency, he banned political parties for 19 years until a
2005 referendum restored multi-party politics.
Mr Museveni is quick to chide his opponents: "There is no genuine
opposition in Uganda," but rather "political careerists and purveyors of
falsehoods", he told a victory party in the capital Kampala after the
March 2011 elections.
The structure of Uganda's national politics, the historical interplay
between society and state and the internal weakness in political
parties have crippled the country's opposition. Three factors explain
why.
First, much like other African countries with little experience in
liberal principles, the ruling NRM continues to promulgate an
environment that is hostile to multi-party politics. From Mr Obote's
single-party system of the 1960s and Idi Amin's dictatorship in the 70s
to Mr Museveni's no-party politics in the 80s and 90s, the military has
played a preponderant role and displaced competitive elections.
"In those countries where the military has been a key political
player--in Angola, Egypt, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda, etc--state
resources are deployed to ensure retention of power by the ruling
party," said Augustine Ruzindana, deputy secretary-general of the main
opposition party, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC). Thus,
"mobilisation, membership recruitment, and fundraising are made
impossible or difficult for opposition parties," Mr Ruzindana added.
In Uganda, the state is synonymous with the ruling NRM. The state's
coercive machinery is directed at defeating the opposition as witnessed
during the 2011 walk-to-work protests against high food and fuel prices.
The NRM and Mr Museveni equate opposition with subversion of the
state, making Uganda's political structure fundamentally unprogressive.
While in developed democracies official opposition is a
government-in-waiting, "in Africa, opposition parties are seen as
detractors and enemies of the ruling parties or even the nation," noted
Asnake Kefale, a politics professor at Addis Ababa University.
Second, Africa's limited experience with open and competitive
politics means long-standing political constituencies are not aligned to
clear ideological persuasions, according to Richard Joseph, a political
science professor at Northwestern University in the US.
Instead, parties are founded on religious affiliations, regional and
ethnic blocs, as was the case with two
Ugandan parties: the UPC, which
is mainly Anglican and based in the east and north; and the DP, largely
Catholic and rooted in central Uganda.
Today religion and ethnicity play a less prominent role. But the main
opposition party, the FDC, nevertheless lacks a clear-cut political
constituency. It is not a party for workers (a very small fraction of
the population), the middle class (equally very small), or the peasant
masses (who are the majority).
Without a political base, the FDC cannot raise funding from party
members. "Most people will find it easier to contribute [to] weddings
and burials the year round than contribute on a sustained basis to
political party activities," said Mugisha Muntu, a retired army general
and now FDC president.
Third, and arguably most important: the state controls material
resources in a country where the ruling party is firmly entrenched.
Uganda is one of Africa's most privatised and liberalised economies. But
the state remains a big business player and indirectly wields a
financial whip.
"There is a desk in the Internal Security Organisation that monitors
all business activities remotely associated with the opposition,"
three-time losing presidential candidate, Kizza Besigye, said over lunch
in Kampala in July. Such businesses are denied government tenders,
targeted by the tax agency and subjected to other crippling government
constraints, he said.
For Frederick Golooba-Mutebi, columnist for The East African
newspaper, a vital problem for opposition parties is that "they have no
money". Unable to raise funds, Uganda's opposition parties cannot
recruit and retain quality leadership and a credible following. "They
have limited reach: no party structures, hardly any regular contact with
their supposed supporters and members, and total absence of activities
geared at recruiting new members," Mr Golooba-Mutebi added.
Critics and opposition leaders accuse the NRM of gross incumbency
abuse. Incumbency, however, can backfire when the party in power is
confronted with a well-organised opposition, for at least two reasons.
First, precisely because of perceived and actual incumbency
advantages, ruling parties suffer succession struggles as members jostle
for positions when a long-reigning ruler finally bows out. This
happened in Ghana in 2000 (with Jerry Rawlings) and Kenya in 2002 (with
Daniel arap Moi). It could have transpired in Uganda in 2006 had Mr
Museveni not bribed MPs to remove term limits, as reported in local and
international media and alleged by some MPs.
Second, the electorate can be rallied to vote out the incumbent party
for its poor performance. Organisational failures within the FDC and
other opposition parties, however, have prevented holding the NRM to
account in Uganda.
To have a fighting chance, Uganda's opposition parties need to
organise and mobilise robustly to overcome constraining political and
economic obstacles. They need to broaden their base by leaving their
headquarters in Kampala and campaigning in the countryside. Instead of
relying on external donors, the opposition needs to tap into local
funding sources such as the small middle-class and business community.
To beat the state's coercive machinery, the opposition should craft an
appealing message and an alternative national vision.
No comments:
Post a Comment