Mr Richard Lumu, the Mityana South Member of Parliament
A move by a lawmaker from one of Uganda’s oldest political parties to seek leave from Parliament in order to amend the Administration of Parliament Act has sparked controversy.
Mr Richard Lumu, a Democratic Party (DP) legislator representing Mityana South, recently proposed that the positions of Leader of Opposition (LoP) and Opposition Chief Whip in Parliament should be made elective as opposed to having such individuals imposed on them by the main Opposition Party in Parliament.
“Election is the epitome of democracy. I am a Catholic. There is an election of the Pope, the highest and respected leader in the world. If there is an election there, there must be an election here,” Mr Lumu said.
“We are in the Opposition, we were elected and we also elected you [Speaker]…We also elected the President. Therefore, there is no reason why when we come to Parliament as the Opposition, we don’t elect our leader who is the Leader of Opposition,” he added.
The Mityana South lawmaker was seconded by Michael Kakembo of Entebbe Municipality, a National Unity Platform (NUP)-leaning legislator.
“We have seen many times in Parliament where the Leader of Opposition thinks that all Opposition belongs to his party,” Mr Kakembo said, adding, “Come vote for your leader, he will respect you, he will unite all of us and with that, it will make us stronger.”
Hidden/ill motive?
Jonathan Odur (Erute South, UPC), however, said the plan to amend the law was “dead on arrival” because it was crafted “in bad faith.”
“It is extremely sad that in Uganda where we should be progressing to a much higher level of democracy than it is, we seem to be regressing,” Mr Odur told Sunday Monitor, adding that, if passed in the current form, Mr Lumu’s pet project will culminate in a selection process of LoP that would be susceptible to monetisation “as it is happening in other forms of election.”
Mr Odur said it would tantamount to the President also being barred from appointing ministers.
“It means chairpersons of committees cannot be appointed by respective political parties. It also means that the different whips must now be elected. That would undermine democracy in Parliament,” the Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) lawmaker noted.
Adam Enap from the UPC also reckons that if Mr Lumu has his way, democracy will suffer a sledgehammer blow because such a law “will impair the independence of the Leader of Opposition” insofar as “it will create a puppet LoP because one who wants to win to be LoP will strike deals and that compromises that office.”
Mr Enap, who previously served in the UPC party legal unit and now wants to dethrone Mr Jimmy Akena as party president, advised all Opposition lawmakers to reject the proposal. And Prof Morris Ogenga-Latigo, a former LoP, couldn’t agree more. He urged the House’s top brass to “throw away power struggles and focus on working for the people.”
Reminiscing about his time as LoP, he said: “Even when there was a matter which was difficult, me, [former Speaker of Parliament, Edward] Ssekandi and [former prime minister] Apolo Nsibambi would meet and resolve it.”
Opposition falling apart?
Mr Timothy Kalyegira, a political commentator, said the majority Opposition party leadership would still determine its desired LoP in the event that Mr Lumu’s proposal was green-lit.
“In any case,” he added, “going by same numbers in NUP, the NUP members will be called by their party president and will be advised to cast a vote for a chosen candidate as LoP.”
Yet despite such assurances, there is a sense that the Opposition is losing its way. There are too many catfights, with the latest culminating in a defiance of LoP Joel Ssenyonyi’s call for a boycott of the regional parliamentary sitting in Gulu. Abed Bwanika (Kimanya-Kabonera, NUP) was the face of the defiance. He captained the House Government Assurance committee, which he chairs, and traversed several districts in the northern region to sound out communities and gather information that was tabled during the House sitting in Gulu.
The decision by some Opposition lawmakers to attend the Gulu sitting has been interpreted in various ways, with some blaming it on a deepening rift within the Opposition ranks. Mr Ssenyonyi has, however, said such defiance is hardly novel. He points to the fact that some Opposition lawmakers opted to attend the State-of-the-Nation Address (Sona) and National Budget Speech events despite a boycott having been announced.
While the LoP doesn’t appear to make a big deal out of such defiance, Mr Enap on his part reckons it is a “manifest of fractures within the Opposition.” He blames this status quo on the “pseudo thinking [by LoPs] that they have power over all MPs in Opposition.” Yet Mr Latigo believes that those pushing hard criticism on Mr Ssenyonyi are wide of the mark.
“It is very easy for people to pick on anything when they want to make you look bad like they have now picked Joel on this matter and they want to make him look bad,” Mr Latigo said.
He added: “Why don’t people critique leaders of other political parties? [For instance Mr Richard] Lumu who is bringing the law to amend [Administration of Parliament Act] is a member of the DP here his party president is a Cabinet minister on government side. Mr Jimmy Akena [UPC party president] and his wife is a Cabinet minister in government. Those are worse than the criticism of things [about Mr Ssenyonyi].”
End of honeymoon
Mr Kalyegira stated that the current manifestations were expected because NUP party members and the LoP “had a sort of honeymoon, but they are also being tested.” The political commentator says while NUP party members “are very popular”, it is evident that “they are also learning on the job.”
He anticipates that the terrain may get tougher for the LoP and indeed the Opposition. The decision to boycott regional plenaries were, Mr Kalyegira further opines, always bound to be read along tribal lines.
“Had the first sitting been in Masaka and then Ssenyonyi came out and de-campaigned the sittings, then there is a likelihood that some people would have said ‘because [Mr Mathias] Mpuuga is from Masaka’ then it is why he is against it,” he noted.
Mr Kalyegira nonetheless faulted NUP for doing “little” to expand their dominance to other parts of the country save for their cradle in Buganda region where the vast bulk of their 57 lawmakers are domiciled.
“So the Opposition should instead be focused on looking beyond Kampala and the central region to not only win more seats, but also to take away the notion that NUP is a Buganda party,” he told Sunday Monitor.
When asked if the fractures within the Opposition point to a deeper malaise, Mr Kalyegira opined otherwise.
“Opposition is not falling apart, but it is being realigned. The reason why it is not falling is that the conditions causing so many people to be disgruntled and angry remain the same in Uganda,” he said, adding, “So whoever becomes the voice of these (disgruntled) people will be followed.”
Rifts galore
Mr Kalyegira chose to read the defiances in the Opposition ranks through a slightly different lens. He said it had become rather endemic, pointing to the splintering of the FDC into the Najjanankumbi and Katonga factions. This pretty much mirrors what happened to the DP and UPC in years gone by.
“What is happening to FDC is what happened to DP. When Mao started working with Mr Museveni then he defeated the purpose of DP. But fortunately for Buganda, at the time this was happening the People Power [movement] that later morphed into NUP came up and Buganda found a home in it,” he said.
He added: “So what will happen is that PFF will come up, will rise and the people who believe in [Kizza] Besigye’s defiance will go to this new party and then Najjanankumbi faction will become what we see in the DP and UPC now.”
PFF is the acronym for the People’s Front for Freedom. It’s hoping to coalesce around Besigye’s charisma if given the green light by the Electoral Commission.
“This is why people keep following people like Besigye who identify with them and let go of the people who get incorporated into NRM,” Mr Kalyegira observed.
Mr Kalyegira also said it should not be lost upon Ugandans that the NRM party itself is in disarray through no provocation of an outsider unlike the Opposition parties. He cited the wrangle between the First Son and CDF Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba on the one hand and his brother in-law Mr Odrek Rwabwogo on the other hand.
“We focus on looking at how the Opposition is falling apart, but we don’t mention the tension in the NRM,” he said, adding, “I would rather sympathise with the Opposition but imagine how the First Family is falling apart in the eyes of the public.”
Opposition
In Uganda, there are five Opposition parties with lawmakers in the House including the Democratic Party (DP), National Unity Platform (NUP), Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC), and Peoples Progressive Party (PPP).
A LoP, who is accorded the status of a Cabinet minister, is elected by the party in Opposition that has the most number of MPs, according to the Administration of Parliament Act.
