Otafiire’s advice to police: Can party activities thrive under NRM?

Last month, Gen Kahinda Otafiire, the minister for Internal Affairs, advised the newly appointed Inspector General of Police, Mr Abas Byakagaba, and his deputy James Ochaya to work towards ensuring that police ceases impeding the work of the political Opposition.
“Don’t go about beating [National Unity Platform (NUP) principal Robert] Kyagulanyi, [former Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) president Kizza] Besigye, and whoever is in the Opposition. Don’t beat them for their opposite ideas. Contain them for behaving unprofessionally or (for) conduct unfit for public convenience,” Otafiire said.

He added, “These parties are legitimate. They are legal. We have them in the Constitution. I did not like this business of multiparty, but Ugandans went into the referendum and said we shall go multiparty. We have it in the Constitution. So, whether I like it or I do not like it I have to respect it because that is the law. So when you are dealing with these people in the Opposition, as police officers do not deal with the Opposition, deal with bad conduct.” 

Otafiire’s words came against a backdrop of standoffs between the Uganda Police Force and NUP. The latter’s planned nationwide mobilisation activities have been pegged back by the former.
On May 22, the Force blocked the entourage of Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine, at Buwolero Village on the Jinja-Kamuli Highway, firing volleys of live ammunition, lobbing teargas canisters and spraying pink water. 
That forced the musician-turned-politician to call off a rally that had been planned in Kamuli Town.

Two days later, the Force inhibited Kyagulanyi’s travel to Pallisa District where he had been scheduled to hold a mobilisation rally by blocking him and his entourage at Ssezibwa Bridge on the Kampala-Kayunga-Jinja highway.
Speaking shortly after the Kamuli rally was foiled, the Busoga North police spokesperson, ASP Michael Kasadha, said NUP mobilisation activities were suspended over non-adherence to set guidelines.

Mr Fred Enanga, the police spokesperson, told journalists a day before the Kamuli rally was stopped that the suspension of NUP’s mobilisation programme in September last year remains in force.
“The suspension continues until the NUP leadership complies with police guidelines and continues to be law abiding,” Mr Enanga said.

Some of the guidelines included notifying police in time; providing police with a liaison officer to coordinate with the Force in regard to the party’s activities; prevail over its members not to wear military attire; provide proof of payment for venues and; availing police with estimated number of people that the party expects at some of its functions.

It is the kind of guideline that has only served to reignite questions about the partiality, or lack of it, on the part of the Uganda Police Force. 
It is a question that has been lingering for as long as the NRM government has been in power.

Coming against such a background, Otafiire’s advice to the Force should have ordinarily been sweet music to the ears of the Opposition, but his words have been received with doubt.
“We do not want to give him too much credit for that because that is what it should be,” Mr Joel Ssenyonyi, the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament (LoP) told Sunday Monitor.
Mr Ssenyonyi also questioned the timing and motives of the General.

“Some of these people are in the evening of their service. I want to think that sometimes maybe they think of the kind of legacy they want to leave. That is why at times you hear them say the things that they say. Otafiire has of recent been saying so many different things,” Mr Ssenyonyi says.

Bad press
It should, however, be noted that Gen Otafiire’s comments come at a time when Uganda has been the recipient of some bad press over, among other things, its handling of the Opposition, something to which the minister alluded.
“Don’t beat the Opposition and bring us a bad name because for us as a government we are not interested in harassing the Opposition,” Otafiire said.
It should be remembered that late in March, the US Department of State released the “2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Uganda”, which once again cast the spotlight on Uganda’s human rights record. 

Among the issues raised was the “substantial interference with the freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association, including overly restrictive laws on the organisation”.
Around the same time, the Democracy Index, a product of The Economist Intelligence Unit, the research and analysis division of The Economist Group, released the 2023 report that concluded that Uganda’s democracy had stagnated, a conclusion arrived at on the basis that the country had failed to ensure that there was a level playing field ahead of the 2021 election, which was said to be neither free nor fair.

Constant
These actions are not new. The accusation that the playing field has always been skewed in favour of the ruling NRM has, for example, been around since 1996 when Uganda held its first direct election.
It, however, became more pronounced in 2016 when the Commonwealth Election Observers’ team led by the former president of Nigeria, Mr Olusegun Obasanjo, pointed out that the Opposition had been heavily disadvantaged by several restrictions.

“Restrictions were imposed to basic freedom of assembly and movement affecting the fairness of the campaign for Opposition candidate and lack of transparency with regard to campaign financing,” Mr Obasanjo pointed out.
It would appear that despite having morphed into a political party, the NRM appears to have some kind of phobia for political parties and competing against them on an even playing field.

Index rankings
It would, in light of such a background, not come as a surprise that the 2023 Democracy Index ranked Uganda 99 out of 167 countries in the world in the practice of democracy.
The assessment of the performance was based on five thematic areas including, among others, electoral processes and pluralism and respect for civil rights and liberties. That saw Uganda ranked 19 out of 54 African countries.

Scores were awarded on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest and the best. Uganda had an overall score of 4.49 on the global setting and 3.42 on the regional score card.
A breakdown showed that Uganda scored 3.42 in the area of electoral processes and pluralism and; 4.71 in civil liberties. All alarmingly below average.

Dr Chris Baryomunsi, the minister for Information, Communication Technology and National Guidance was quick to dismiss the report as the handwork of some armchair researchers.
“They just sit in their air conditioned offices in the Western world and start assessing countries when they have not physically reached those countries to see the democratic culture which is prevailing,” the minister said.

Baryomunsi insisted that Uganda is one of the most democratic countries.
“If you talk of political participation, how are leaders chosen in Uganda? They are chosen through an involving electoral process. Uganda performs much better than what they are presenting and I suspect they have not set foot in Uganda here,” Baryomunsi said.
However, less than two months after he made the comments, police was facing off with NUP functionaries.

NRM phobia?
However, much as an NRM historical is the one making the case for police to let the Opposition political parties operate as they should, NRM appears to be obsessed with wishing political parties away. 

Legal Notice No. 1 of 1986 suspended “all forms of political activities and any other form of political activities” until further notice. The same instrument directed that all forms of gatherings had to be cleared by the police.
The NRM also ensured that suspension of political party activities was constitutionalised. Article 269 which barred parties from engaging in “any activities that may interfere with the Movement political system” was written into the 1995 Constitution. 

The same Article barred them from operating branches, holding public rallies and sponsoring candidates for political office for as long as the Movement system was in force.
Now a few years short of two decades since the political space was reopened to allow for a return to a multiparty political dispensation, police still operate as if the provisions of Legal Notice No. 1 are still in force and as if Article 269 has never been repealed.

Previously, it was the Democratic Party (DP) and its youth wing, the Uganda Young Democrats (UYD), then FDC and its former leader, Dr Besigye and Opposition MPs that had been on the radar of the police. Now it is the members and leaders of the NUP on the Force’s radar.
The Force’s motivation, even logic, has often been difficult to understand. Mr Gerald Siranda, the DP secretary general who is also the party’s representative to the East African Legislative Assembly (Eala), is one of those that have previously questioned the Force’s motives.

“Why would you on a normal day block an MP from holding a meeting in his own constituency? He might have other ambitions, yes, but that is his constituency. Police is behaving like a youth wing of the NRM,” Siranda told Sunday Monitor in a previous interview.
Enanga has always maintained that police is impartial.
The problem though is that it is not the political parties and local non state actors alone that have for a long time now been pointing fingers in the direction of the Force.

“The  Uganda  Police  Force has not yet embraced its constitutional role as an impartial enforcer against breaches of electoral law,” the report issued by the European Union Election Observation Team for the 2011 General Election read in part.
The report of the observer mission to the 2016 elections also called out the Force for using “excessive force against Opposition, media and the public and maintaining an intimidating presence at polling centres”.

NRM question
Whereas Otafiire might be well intentioned, the question is whether the ruling NRM, which stands to benefit when the Opposition is muzzled, will ever allow political parties to operate as they should. 
One of the things that must happen in order for this to happen is for the government to either initiate or cause amendments to the Public Order Management Act (POMA). 
That has been a long standing demand of political parties under the Interparty Organisation for Dialogue (IPOD), but it is one that the ruling NRM has never acquiesced to. Will it do so now?
NRM secretary general Richard Todwong has on several occasions indicated that the party is also keen on seeing amendments to POMA.

“We are players in the same field and also experience hardships, only that we do not over cry. We have also been complaining about the many controls, which curtail party activity. We too would want to see the playing field levelled. We too would like to engage government to see to it that the regulations in POMA and the Police Act are   relaxed,” Todwong said in previous interview.

The problem though, is that the talking is not in tandem with the actions. Indeed a few days after the minister tendered his advice, police announced that it was stopping the mobilisation activities of NUP, a decision which was precipitated by an accident in which three people died and several others suffered injuries in a procession on the Kampala-Masaka highway.
It is against such a background that the Opposition is calling for the words to be more than the cheap talk that they are looking like.

“He is not an ordinary person on the road. He is the minister for Internal Affairs. He supervises the police force. Let him prevail upon his people. He is in a position where he can do something about it. So the right things which he is saying, he should push for them,” Mr Ssenyonyi says.
Action, as they say, speakers louder than words. Until he acts, the question whether the NRM can ever let the Opposition operate like it should will remain lingering.