Museveni Succession: Can army allow VP to take over?

ELIAS BIRYABAREMA

KAMPALA
On a September 5th 2007 visit to Dwaniro, Kiboga District in central Uganda which hosted one of the rearguard bases for his vicious National Resistance Army, NRA insurgency against the UPC government (1981-85), President Yoweri Museveni let slip past his mouth a chilling revelation.

"If you had not elected us in 1996 and had not given us the mandate, we would have gone back to the bush to fight," Mr Museveni was quoted by national media on September 7 as telling the gathered peasants.

Perhaps it was tactical that Mr Museveni had chosen a rural setting, and an audience that could hardly perceive the extraordinary import of his statements to deliver what might be the most telling clue to the mindset and character of the NRA and its offspring, the UDPF.

Even if they had lost the election, Mr Museveni declared, they (him and his soldiers, the NRA) could never have allowed the "killers" who he said had backed DP's Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere, to come to power.

The inference from Mr Museveni's revelation was that the army and its Commander-in-Chief were unwilling to cede power regardless of Ugandans' choice. That was only a year after Uganda had gotten a new Constitution with free and fair elections as one of its sacrosanct principles.

"In simple English: Mr Museveni would have overthrown the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda," Dr Muniini Mulera a regular commentator on Uganda's politics said.

And this is the possibility we seek to explore in the second part of our series which delves into whether the UPDF would ever allow a civilian to assume power in case the incumbent slipped into incapacitation.

In the formal and automated process of national governance, succession in such a scenario is pretty straightforward and clear: the Vice President (currently Prof. Gilbert Bukenya) would assume office. But in the cold and brutal realities of Ugandan politics, succession never seems to follow a standard path, as is much of Sub-Saharan Africa.

And so, it's never a given as our Constitution suggests that power would automatically flow where it's supposed to if the presidency suddenly falls vacant. It all really hinges on how the army, the single force that has historically directed the course of power in independent Uganda, will act or not act.

"Ours is to respect the rule of law," insisted UPDF spokesperson, Maj. Felix Kulayigye in an interview on December 11. "Subject to the Constitution, we'll submit to whoever is in power as long as he's there legally."

The genteel and thoughtful Internal Affairs Minister, Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, too sees any suggestion of a possible UPDF interference in the succession process as mere conjecture.

But his optimism derives from a basic assumption. "The question of succession is a small point," he told Daily Monitor on December 12. "Because it has been well sorted out by the Constitution."

Still, beyond the assertions of Maj. Kulayigye and Dr Rugunda, there is a lot for Ugandans to fret about. The history of UPDF is not a history of virtue and patriotism.
Threats
In the heat of the 2001 presidential election campaigns, the current Coordinator of Intelligence Agencies in Uganda, Gen. David Tinyefuza, infamously declared that he would not submit to Dr Kiiza Besigye if the latter won the presidency.

And the former Director General of the Internal Security Organisation, Brig. Henry Tumukunde, reminded voters that whatever they did, Mr Museveni would still rule because they still had their guns.

Although such statements from serving (and senior) army officers would appear to carry a treasonable intent, there was never so much as a verbal reprimand from the army leadership then: corroborating what Mr Museveni implied later in Dwaniro - only the will of the army would really determine who rules Uganda.

Obviously, Gen. Tinyefuza's and Brig. Tumukunde's utterances are starkly incongruous with Maj. Kulayigye and Dr Rugunda's assertions of UPDF being a professional army, ready to submit to whichever Commander-in-Chief Ugandans (the people) may chose. Another incident, too, does undermine the glowing portrayals of UPDF.

On February 15, 2006, Lt. Ramathan Magara shot into a crowd of Dr Kiiza Besigye supporters at Bulange, Mengo, killing two people and permanently maiming a third. That tragedy, by a soldier during multiparty election campaigns, drew nationwide outrage and became a timeless stain on the UPDF.

But to the consternation of many, Lt. Magara was never court-martialled. The army instead disowned him and he was later charged in a civilian court and promptly granted bail, virtually leaving him a free man.
Lt. Magala killings
That a soldier could orchestrate such gruesome violence against an opponent of Mr Museveni, and he's even defended by elements in government (an RDC, Mr Fred Bamwine did) again underlines that faceless but decisive role of the army in determining Uganda's president.

True, Maj. Kulaigye's explanation initially sounds firm. "He's a civilian. He was retired from the army and so we couldn't try him."

But then it is Mr Museveni who invented a solution for civilians that use instruments that are a preserve of the army: court-martial. Lt. Magara used an AK 47 to murder the civilians, a weapon never licensed for civilian defence and only used by the security forces.

That is the government's justification to subject whoever handles an AK47 in Uganda to military law. How stupefying then that a 'retired' soldier could take up an AK 47, unleash a bloodbath and be spared a court-martial? Instead, since his release, Lt. Magara has claimed to be a representative of the President at one function.

Also telling is the army's feeling of entitlement to a major political role in Uganda. Even after constitutional amendments to suit the multiparty system, the army, about 50,000 strong, still maintains 10 seats in Parliament, even though all 10 are supposed to have only one view.

Clearly, the army sees itself as far more important than the rest of the population for at their ratio of parliamentary representation of 1:5000, Uganda's Parliament would have 6,000 MPs for a population of 30 million, if the civilian citizens were deemed to be equal to the soldiers in importance.

But to the leader of the Opposition, Prof Morris Ogenga Latigo, fears of UPDF hijacking power in case their current Commander-in-Chief got incapacitated in office are naïve. Coup d'états, he said on December 12, are anachronistic. "Time when soldiers used to do stupid things is over," he said.
In a Uganda where eccentric political actions are never in scarcity, many might find that assessment inaccurate.

Besides, that the leader of opposition can edit his own opinion to say what he does not believe shows how cowed politicians on both sides of the divide have become.

For the same Prof Latigo, on December 7, barely five days before, had indicated to a gathering of Uganda British Alumni Association that conditions prevailing in Uganda today are quite similar to those during the Chogm of 1971 when Idi Amin overthrew Milton Obote.

Addressing the UBAA dinner as guest of honour Prof Latigo said like the construction boom in Kampala today, Uganda's economy in 1971 was booming, the infrastructure excellent and the social services the envy of all Africa but that did not stop multitudes to pour into the streets to celebrate the toppling of the government by a soldier.

What is clearly hard to argue against therefore is that, for a typical Ugandan soldier power does not necessarily belong to the people, as the Constitution otherwise states in article 1.