On the 14th January 2021 Ugandans went to the polls and elected their leaders of choice specifically the president, the constitiuency and the district women members of parliament. All these categories had independent candidates contesting which we need to intorrogate further and address.
Results show that the total number of parliamentarians under the above category is four hundred ninety eight (498) members.This number comprises of both parliamentary candidates who stood on their political party ticket and the independents who came to parliament not on any politucal party ticket or afflilation hence being referred to as independents.
On scrutiny, apart from members who won the election on party tickets, the 10th parliament of Uganda is also most likely to be with more than one hundred (100) independent members. As of now we have sixty four( 64) NRM leaning and not all elections are concluded, yet we are operating a multi Party system of governance as a country! In my view this is not a good thing at all because it is weakening the existing political parties in the country and deflating the entire muliparty democratic system of governance as a whole.
The emergence of these independents and their continued existence in uganda’s parliament is a clear indication of failure to comprehend and practice political party system of governance and have it work fully for service delivery to the people of uganda. Some of these independents did not participate in party primaries at all because they chose to stand as so from the word go. This clearly shows that they did not have trust in any political party that exists in Uganda and were unable to form a new one either but rather they believed in themselves as individuals that they can serve the people better without being affliates (belonging) to any political party. This in itself is not very healthy as it takes us back to the earlier days of individual merit to which as a country we agreed that it was no longer viable and chose to go multi Party through a refrendum.
This can be remembered very well with Mr. Ochegere and his dove symbol on one hand and Mzee Museveni with his talk of bagende, tubejjeko ( let them go ) on the other hand. The question here now is , has multipartism failed, so should we revert to the individual merit system? Can you Imagine an independent presidential candidate winning the seat of presidency in a multi party democracy! This will be a debate for another day.
The other category is of those independents who contested in party primaries, lost, but chose to come back as independents to compete against their official party candidates commonly referred to as party flag bearers . For this category of independents I will majorly limit my self to the NRM political party and zero down to Bunyoro region alone because it is in it that I belong and where I participated as a candidate during the party primaries.
I conceded during our NRM party primaries not necessarily that I had lost in a fair election but rather because I Know the party is bigger than the individual party members and these were internal Party dynamics and it is through the party that services to the wanainchi can be delivered better using the NRM party as a vehicle .I was bruised and reeling with anger from inside because of the terror of unfairness which had been unlished on me by declaring a winner who never was in the true sense of winning.As unfair as it was, I had hope that at one time within our party I would find an opportunity to point out these irregularities for correction not to have a repeat of the same in future. When the opportunity of reconciliation within the party came, my hope was renewed and I knew time for sharing had come but guess what, we who had participated in the party primaries for parliamentary elections and had lost during primaries, we were never invited to attend the reconciliation meetings that were held in Bunyoro specifically in Kikuube district!
Resultantly I still chose to keep quiet and not go public to point out these uncalled for behaviors of our party leaders in order not to undermine my party during an election period because I still believe in internal party cohesion and that’s why I canvassed support for Mzee and the NRM party flag bearers on my own without any support from any one. Now that elections are behind us and the people have entrusted us as NRM to continue managing the affiairs of the state of Uganda in trust I can now speak out freely of what happened during our primaries such that we may have a better Uganda for everyone.
The NRM party primary elections were generally marred with a lot of irregularities so much so that almost the entire country petitioned the NRM electoral commission complaining of vote rigging including the party chairman himself who came out and condemned the theft of the vote coupled with the violence which characterised nearly the entire election across the country. As a person who was in the race competing in Buhaguzi east constitiuency in the district of Kikuube ,the irregularities that I witnessed were too much and so glaring for all to see but shockingly the party leadership in the district seemed not to care but rather appeared to be in support of vote rigging as if it was the usual normal! The rigging was mainly to do with voter bribery and altering of results on the declaration forms by some of the NRM electoral officials who had been compromised by some of the NRM candidates I competed with during our NRM Party primaries. I will not delve so much into details here, this resulted into complaints and disgruntlement by the party members and the competing NRM candidates who had been unfairly treated having been rigged out. Many chose to come back in the race as independents against the party’s line of management of affairs for which I refused to budge because I am more interested in service delivery for my people as championed by the party other than the individual gain of a person at the expense of the common good. This showed me that some people take politics as a do or die matter because of lack of party ideology.
This kind of mentality should be fought vehemently because politics is aimed at serving others for the betterment of society as opposed to self. The best way of doing this is by strengthening the multi party system of governance where by political parties are used as vehicles to reach to the people and deliver to them the required services other than relying on particular individual persons to do the same.
A considerable number of candidates who had not gone through in the primaries, became aggrieved and disgruntled party members who had contested during primaries but could not swallow their bitterness to support the party after having petitioned the NRM electoral commission and failing to get justice as per their wish. These chose to go independent to tussle it out with flag bearers because they had it in their mind that the flag bearers did not necessarily hold the party flag reflecting the will of the party members (people) since they had “rigged” an election to get the flag . This raises a bigger issue of the party ideology . I am not so sure as to whether the members of the party are aware of the NRM party ideology and have been able to chose this NRM based on it’s ideology or it’s simply because of the individual merit. Here the leaders of the party need to be tasked as to whether they know the NRM ideology and have been able to entrench it in the wanainchi or they only use the NRM Party for self gain?
As a clear manifestation to confirm that the party primaries had been characterised by vote rigging and the will of the people was never reflected in it’s entirerity, a number of NRM flag bearers from different areas lost during the national election to independent candidates and in some NRM strong holds like in Hoima city where the president always scored highly,this time round he only scored 56% . The NRM city woman MP flag bearer lost to an FDC candidate, in Masindi municipality the NRM flag bearer and a minister for Bunyoro affairs hon. Kiiza Ernest lost to an FDC candidate , in Buliisa the incumbent and NRM flag bearer hon Mukitale Stephen lost to an NRM leaning independent candidate, in my own district of Kikuube the flag bearer of the party to whom I conceded for the good of the party, lost to an independent candidate.
This independent winner, we contested together during the party primaries but he chose to come back as an independent against the party decision! The Buhaguzi east constitiuency is now under an independent candidate, though an NRM party member, he can only be leaning and may never sit in the NRM party meetings. So decisions taken there in he will not be party to them and am wondering how will the implimentation of our party manifesto be during this five term of his. This is very dangerous in my view because it is weakening our mighty NRM party and promoting the individual persons at the expense of the party. This needs to be addressed if we are to grow and entrench multipartism for the survival of the NRM party for now and the years to come. This is why I earlier on talked of ideology especially to do with party leaders. I have a few ideas on how this can be addressed but I will reach out and we engage within the party for solution finding in the very near future now that elections are behind us.
In the NRM party, decisions are taken in the parliamentary party caucus and whatever decision is made there in, is binding to the party members however “bad” it may be,the principle of collective responsibility sets in here. So whatever is passed in the caucus becomes binding to all the members when it comes to parliamentary affairs. This is where the notion of rebel MPs came from because they “rebels” would go against the party decision and make public pronouncements against the party decisions taken claiming they are for the people and not for the party! This rebellion itself continues to show that multipartism is yet to get fully grounded and is being undermined by the party members themselves. Still here the party ideology needs to be strengthened further.These happenings are not a preserve of the NRM party only, but it is also occuring in other political parties across the divide though I won’t delve much into it because I don’t belong there.
The independents can only be NRM party leaning but can never be NRM party members of parliament though in essence they are as they hold NRM party cards, what a paradox! This is so because they didn’t come to parliament on a party ticket. In other places of the world where multipartism is grounded (case studies on a country by country basis can be done) when an individual member of parliament of a given political party feels or is opressed by his/her own political party he /she crosses over to another one as an alternative to serve his/her interest with the people as the primary beneficiaries. For those members who fail to find a party of choice to cross over to, they usually form new political parties to develop a different ideology non existent in the parties available .
To the contrary, in Uganda the party members opt to go as independents against the will of their own parties as opposed to joining other political parties or forming a new political party all together! I have only seen some few politicians do this here , a few examples include; Mugisha Muntu from FDC he formed ANT, some DP members crossing from DP to FDC and NUP – Hon. Elias lukwago from DP to FDC, Hon. Medard SSegona from DP to NUP and a few others. But, even then they had been independents as well earlier on before crossing over or forming a new party including Hon. Robert Kyagulanyi who had come to parliament as an independent but later on formed NUP. (which is most likely to be a lead party of opposition in parliament) .
In my view this phenomenon of independents is a clear manifestation of selfish interest of individuals to serve self as opposed to holding power in trust to serve the people using political parties as vehicles because they may not be ideologically oriented. In social studies, a political ideology is a certain set of ethical ideals, principles, doctrines, myths or symbols of a social movement, institution, class or large group that explains how society should work and offers some political and cultural blueprint for a certain social order.How much of this has been done by our political parties in Uganda, still remains as a question.
In conclusion , independents don’t belong to any party but they only lean to a party of choice through an MOU! This is not good for multipartism, they (independents) should belong and not lean. I therefore call upon on everyone of good will who wants us to grow multiparty democracy in Uganda to let parties have ideologies grown upon which members base to join the party as opposed to jumping on the wagon or being carried away by the wind or you may call it the wave.
Busobozi Godfrey is an educationist, social worker and former NRM MP flag bearer contestant for Buhaguzi East constituency in Kikuube district.
Email: gbbusobozi@gmail.com.
Do you have a story in your community or an opinion to share with us: Email us at editorial@watchdoguganda.com
