Uganda’s political defections over the past 50 years

Also an AIDS prevention activist, he had enjoyed a respectable public profile as a patriot, a voice of reason and eloquence and a principled politician, which is why the shock of his departure from the FDC shocked so many people and made major national news.

But as several FDC officials and Members of Parliament were quick to note as they put a brave face to Ruranga’s re-defection, he is not the first and the party can go on without him.

The defections
In fact, going back 50 years the instances of leading politicians defecting from an opposition party to the ruling party or entity are many and in that sense, Ruranga’s case should be understood as more of the same. It is not an earth-shaking event.

In 1964, the Leader of Opposition in Parliament, Basil Bataringaya, in a surprise move abandoned the Democratic Party and along with several DP MPs, crossed over to the ruling Uganda People’s Congress.

It was the first indication, coming just two years into independence, of what lay ahead for Africa. Even though general elections organized by the departing European colonial powers had led to independence, it soon became clear that in Africa all power belonged to the ruling party.

The opposition existed on paper and was given the dignity of debating in the National Assembly, but ultimately it played little part in the formulation of policy. General elections in Africa often lead to a situation in which the winner took it all.

The opposition parties had little financial self-sufficiency and institutions and fundraising abilities while not in power. They tended to go dormant in between elections, their campaign funds quickly drying up following the polls and their only hope for a viable status was that of getting voted into power.

Under those circumstances, it was easy to compromise opposition politicians by offering them money or jobs. Bataringaya became the Minister of Internal Affairs in the UPC government after his defection.

The reason Bataringaya became Leader of the Opposition in parliament and not the DP President-General Benedicto Kiwanuka was because Kiwanuka had not contested a parliamentary seat and so could not sit in parliament.

The situation in which the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament was not the president of the main opposition party would re-occur nearly 50 years later.

The FDC’s president Kizza Besigye, a thrice runner-up in Uganda’s presidential election was not in parliament and the Leader of the Opposition became a senior FDC MP, first Morris Ogenga Latigo and later Nathan Nandala Mafabi.

In 1971 following the military coup that brought the army commander, Major-General Idi Amin to power, most of the deposed UPC government leaders and Members of Parliament could not come to terms with Amin as head of state and chose either to oppose him from bases in exile or lay low inside Uganda.

One notable exception was the former Principal Private Secretary to President Obote, Henry Kyemba, who on returning from the Commonwealth summit in Singapore, continued to work at the same job and later as Minister of Health under Amin.

While this was not a typical political defection like Bataringaya’s, it was the most significant switch by a prominent member of the now “opposition” party to the ruling political group, in this case, Amin’s military government.

The same once-proud and dignified UPC cabinet ministers who had bestrode the political stage in the 1960s were now reduced to a difficult exile life in Tanzania or began to struggle with unfamiliar private businesses.

Amin regime
When the Amin government deported the non-citizen Asians in 1972 and allocated their houses and businesses to Ugandans, Amin’s officials allocated houses to several of these former UPC ministers. That gave them a veneer of dignity during the 1970s before most of them fled into exile or died under still mysterious circumstances.

In 1980, the UPC returned to power in a bitterly disputed general election and once again the DP was the main opposition party in parliament.

Following the election, there were negotiations between senior UPC figures and the defeated president of the Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM) party and former Defence Minister, Yoweri Museveni, on what role Museveni could play in the new government.

The talks broke down after a meeting at Obote’s resident in Kololo one of the UPC officials, angry at Museveni’s demands for a prominent job, shouted at him, claiming he was not even a Ugandan to begin with and so, claimed this official, should not waste the UPC’s time days after their victory.

Had these negotiations succeeded, it is possible Museveni would have been named a minister in Obote’s new government, possibly even given back his old Defence portfolio.

Just as it had done in the 1960s, the UPC tried to deal a psychological blow to the DP’s nationwide membership by engineering defections by top officials.

1982 situation
In 1982, orchestrated by the UPC Secretary-General, Dr John Luwuliza-Kirunda, dozens of mainly Basoga DP MPs in parliament publicly announced that they had crossed over to the UPC at a much-publicised rally in Kamuli town.

These mass defections clearly could not have been caused by individual soul-searching and change of political direction. What then led them? It is possible that, as just mentioned, campaign debts caught up with them and they were offered money.

Or perhaps the state intelligence services quietly accumulated sensitive and embarrassing information on them and used it as blackmail.

Three years later, however, the UPC government was ousted for a second time by the army. Immediately, the Vice President, Paulo Muwanga, was named the new Executive Prime Minister under the new military head of state and former army commander, Lt. Gen. Tito Okello.

This appointment of Muwanga, a staunch UPC leader, surprised many and it was not clear if this was the defection of a man left with no choice following his government’s overthrow or he had secretly been working with these coup leaders Tito Okello and Major-General Bazillio Okello all along.

Muwanga’s tenure as Prime Minister was short-lived after the NRA guerrillas led by Museveni demanded that as part of their peace negotiations with the Okello junta in August 1985, Muwanga be dismissed.

Six months after Okello took power, he was overthrown by Museveni’s NRA. Triumphant militarily but lacking a real political base with which to rule the country and knowing it faced many threats, the NRM set up a “broad-based” government, inviting several opposition leaders to its ranks as cabinet ministers.

The most notable of these were Paulo Ssemogerere, President-General of the Democratic Party and the Attorney-General in the short-lived Okello government and the man who, as a DP candidate, had defeated Museveni at the constituency level in the 1980 elections, Sam Kutesa.

Others included the President of the Conservative Party, Jehoash Mayanja-Nkangi, prominent DP leaders or members such as Evaristo Nyanzi, Andrew Kayiira, UPC’s Daniel Omara Atubo, Dr. Philemon Mateke, Paul Etiang and others.

While not, technically, the same as the 1964 and 1982 defections --- they remained nominally members of their parties but served in this coalition government --- in essence they followed the pattern of opposition leaders joining or working with the ruling government.

As it had been in the 1960s, life in the opposition was difficult for its leaders who held out. Being part of a ruling party with the perks of state privileges helped these opposition leaders enjoy the air of dignity and comfort (although in October 1986, many of these DP cabinet ministers were arrested in a large sweep following allegations by the army that they had planned to overthrow the Museveni government.)

On the military front, too, several former guerilla officers, such as Hussein Ada (Uganda Freedom Army), Samuel Kasirye-Gwanga (FEDEMU), Brig. Moses Ali and Major Amin Onzi (Uganda National Rescue Front), joined the new national army, the NRA.

After Uganda returned to the multi-party political system in 2005, the NRM was now just a party like any other and predictably the moves and maneouvres to engineer defections also resumed.

Shock defections
The first of these shock defections was by a DP stalwart, Maria Mutagamba. She was followed by the former Mayor of Kampala, Nasser Sebaggala; a vocal critic against corruption and Catherine Naava Nabageresa, a DP member and former contestant for the Kampala women’s parliamentary seat.

An atmosphere of suspicion gripped Uganda’s opposition and media after 2005. Every casual conversation between an opposition MP or leader and a senior NRM official or Museveni was interpreted as a sign that this opposition official was about to be “bought”.

Rumours raged about the possible defection of Kitgum Woman MP, Beatrice Anywar, to the NRM after she was seen at public community events with Museveni. There were rumours that some, like Beti Kamya, President of the Uganda Federal Alliance, were secret plants by Museveni’s State House in the opposition.

When Alex Onzima from the FDC; Henry Mayega and Badru Wegulo from the UPC also defected to the NRM, it seemed to confirm the fears and rumours that all along several opposition leaders and vocal officials were, in fact, moles planted within the opposition to destroy or disorganize it.

Rwakasisi joins Museveni
Later, after his release from jail after more than 25 years, the former Minister of State in the Office of the President and member of President Obote’s innermost circle in the 1980s, Chris Rwakasisi, abandoned the UPC and joined the 2011 election campaign trail on behalf of President Museveni.

Given this 50-year history of opposition activists, MPs and other officials joining or working with the ruling party, the last thing that should have surprised Ugandans was for Major. Rubaramira Ruranga to defect from the FDC. In his case, it was back to the NRM to which he originally belonged.

He tried to put a favourable explanation to his defection, careful to stress that he was now leaving active politics and his was more a joining hands with President Museveni to redouble the campaign against the rising HIV infection rates and not yet another unprincipled politician seeking a source of income.

Major Ruranga, it is well-known, had also become disillusioned about the conduct of the FDC presidential elections in November 2012 that brought the former army Commander, Major-General Mugisha Muntu victory. Ruranga had supported the current Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, Nandala Mafabi, in that party election.

When all is said and done, Ruranga’s defection rightly made news but should not have been the major surprise it was. It has long been the way of politics in Uganda.
==========================
The politics of party hopping

The crossing of former FDC’s head of electoral affairs to ruling party has sparked off a torrent of reaction across the political divide.

However, political crossing has not started with the NRM government. This scenario is as old as political organisations in Uganda. The first famous political crossing started with the first parliament made up of UPC-KY and DP. The leader of the opposition Basil Bataringaya crossed from DP to join UPC in 1964 with six Members of Parliament from his party. To political observers he is branded the father of political crossings in the country.

Though Bataringaya is branded the fore father of political crossings he was not the first to do so. Before main stream political parties came into being there were other political pressure groups fighting against the colonial rule and even these were not spared from crossing from one group to the other or to the one they were opposed to.

From then on the UPC strength heavily relied on the support from members who had crossed from KY and DP.

Unfortunately with time the party suffered the same fate towards the 1980 general elections, when a number of its members deserted UPC and joined DP and others went on to form a new political party UPM. Among those who crossed from UPC included Dr Martin Aliker, Prof Yoweri Kyesimira , Dr Kazungu, , Dr Muzira, Wilson Lutaya, Matia Ngobi, James Kahigiriza, Alex Waibale among others.

Others who left UPC to form UPM include the late Chango Macho, Ruhakana Rugunda, Kirunda Kivejinja, Kintu Musoke, Bidandi Ssali though he later left the revamped UPM turned NRM to form People’s Progressive Party PPP.

Other notable crossings in the history of Uganda’s politics include Mayanja Nkangi when he crossed from Uganda National Congress UNC to KY and later he became the president of the Conservative Party CP and he campaigned for presidency in 1980 on the CP ticket.

Former vice president John Babiiha crossed from UPU to UPC and soon became a vice president a post he wouldn’t have held had he not crossed. The same applies to Basil Bataringaya. Soon after crossing from DP to UPC he became Obote’s right hand man appointing him the internal affairs minister. Bataringaya was one of the people who tried the thwart Amin’s coup in 1971. He tried flying out to Singapore and brief Obote of the trend of events back home. According to Makerere University History lecturer Mwambutsa Ndebesa political crossings are a result of convenience not conviction.

Fast forward to the movement era, political parties were in a limbo for more than a decade. Until recently there have been massive crossings from UPC to NRM when the party’s big wigs like Henry Mayiga, Chris Rwakasisi and Badru Wegulo.

NRM has not been the only beneficiary of deserters; it has had its share of people leaving the party and ending up on the opposite side of the political divide. Unlike in other parties where they have lost people who have come through the ranks, when the NRM as a party was being formed it had promoters. And some of them have deserted the very party they promoted from inception.

[By Henry Lubega]

[email protected]