By KATUMBA GERALD.
During the Easter Holiday as I was meditating about the suffering, betrayal, Death and Resurrection of Jesus something strange came into my mind, logically think of a government in power funding the opposition to take over power!!! Yes, it’s the law that guides the narrative but outside the legal perspective is it really logical, but anyway I remembered it’s Politics with its confusing tricks.
This gave me a challenge to have a look at how this saga started, when Gen.Museveni came to power in 1986, he banned all Political Parties and established a no-party state Governed under the Movement system.
In March 1994, elections were held in which 284 individuals were elected to the Constituent Assembly C.A [Parliament]. All participants contested came as independent candidates. After that election, the new members of the Constituent Assembly drew up a new Constitution of 1995. This Constitution, among others, required that presidential elections be organized every after five-year term.
To animate that provision, in 1996 the Constituent Assembly passed the presidential Elections Act.
Later that same year, the Museveni regime organized a presidential election, but still under movement system. Museveni contested against Dr.Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere and Mohhamad Kibirige Mayanja and others whom he defeated with a margin of 74%.
In 2001, the Museveni regime held another presidential election, still under Movement system where Museveni defeated Dr.Col.Kiiza Besigye and others with a margin of 69% of the vote.
In 2005, 25 years since Gen.Museveni had banned political parties, Uganda held a referendum in which 92% of the Ugandans voted for a return to the multi-party system. To operationalize this system, parliament passed the 2005 Political Parties and Organizations Act.
But whereas Uganda had returned to the multi-party system, the newly-freed political parties were at a risk of collapsing due to lack of money to fund their operations and activities. So, in July 2008, stakeholders organized an Interparty Dialogue to discuss the possibility of funding political parties.
The dialogue was chaired by the then Leader of Opposition Lop Prof. Ogenga Latigo, it was attended by all parties, NRM was represented by Charles Bakkabulindi, D. P by the late John Ssebaana Kizito, FDC by Dr.Kizza Besigye, JEEMA by Kibirige Mayanja and CP by John Ken Lukyamuzi, other parties in attendance were UPC,PPP&PDP.
At this dialogue, the political parties unanimously agreed that government must use some of the public money it collects to fund political parties. In March 2010, Parliament amended the 2005 Political Parties Act to provide that Gov’t shall contribute funds to all Political Parties having MPs in Parliament. The funds would be shared according to the following principles;
1.Gov’t would fund the parties in respect of elections and their normal day to day activities.
2.In respect of elections, Gov’t would fund parties on equal basis.
3.In respect of normal day to day activities, the funding would be based on the numerical strength of each party in Parliament, and,
4.The funds provided to political parties would be audited.
After that amendment, Political parties started getting a share of the public funds but it was still too little. Finally in 2019, the parties agreed at an IPOD meeting to increase the money they shared to about UGX 30B, the then newly created political party National Unity Platform did not attend that meeting.
Nevertheless, NUP gets about UGX 3 billion [10%] annually from the UGX 30 billion as the biggest and the leading opposition party in Parliament. All other opposition parties represented in Parliament including FDC, JEEMA and DP also get a part of this money. NRM takes the lion’s share of the money-about UGX 17 billion [57%].
IS POLITICAL PARTY FUNDING JUSTIFIABLE?
Building a resilient democracy requires constant effort. Almost all countries we copy our democratic practices from including USA, Germany, Canada, Sweden, France etc give their political parties including those in the opposition a share of taxes they collect.
The funding is intended to make the political parties more independent from private and individual interests, and to become more accountable to the public in whose interest they act.
It also promotes fair competition and creates a balance of political forces, all of which ultimately builds democracy in the sense that it strengthens parties and encourages diversity of political opinion.
From the above context, you may see why it was necessary for Uganda to amend the law to provide Gov’t fund all political parties.
The unfortunate bit, however is that the political parties’ [amendment] Act of 2010 has been weaponized to control and delegitimize the opposition to Museveni and hie regime. That’s why when NUP refused to join IPOD, Museveni threatened to stop funding political parties. It’s also the reason why regime praise-singers constantly remind everyone how ‘NUP receives billions from Museveni” to create the impression that NUP is involved in dishonest dealings with the regime-which is malicious.
The Museveni regime has deliberately made the political terrain rugged for his opponents so that even with the mandatory funding, there is not much of a challenge they can mount against him. What the amendment intended to achieve, Museveni hide behind the law, deploy armed forces against the opposition activities, intimidating public institution and the media yet the activities he is against are the ones being funded by his regime under the Amended Political parties Act.
The issue therefore, should not be whether NUP gets money from Museveni regime- the regime has no choice-unless it repeals the 2010 Amendment just like it has no choice but to pay salaries of opposition MPs and other leaders, likewise NUP or any other opposition party has no choice but to accept the funding because that’s the law governing Political parties of today.
The pertinent issue, instead, should be whether NUP spends the public funds it receives prudently. With the hundreds of family members of missing or detained supporters NUP looks after and the attendant legal fees, public functions it organizes, investments in party infrastructures etc, the answer to that question is obvious, it’s worth NUP to be facilitated just like other opposition political parties but this shouldn’t be a hook to manipulate the youngest party in Uganda’s politics.
