Post-Museveni Parliament: A Legacy of the Power of Patronage

ELIAS BIRYABAREMA


In the 22 years that Mr. Yoweri Museveni has led Uganda, his has been largely an imperial presidency with his hand literally in every pie. Just about every important state institution has long gotten used to his frequent personal intervention which has come to influence the functioning (or malfunctioning) of these institutions. They have more or less been modelled in his image and there’s not much clarity and understanding on how these institutions might operate in case the person, on whom their very existence has revolved, exits power. In a new eight-part series I delve into some of the key institutions and government policies and show how they will change or not change in a Post-Museveni Uganda.
The First which runs today tackles Parliament.

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KAMPALA--For all the rhetorical bluster and bumble that occasionally issues from the “dissident” sections of members of parliament, the legislature under president Museveni’s 22-year administration, has largely been conformist and pliant all through.

Under the quaint individual-merit Movement system starting with the 6th Parliament in1996, there prevailed a presumption that the legislators had unencumbered latitude to pursue independent thinking and perform their work free from the corrupting influence of the executive. However, as Museveni’s regime entrenched itself in power and sought tighter control of all state institutions, the legislature was slowly pulled and enmeshed in the web of executive manoeuvres, which soon handed president Museveni powerful levers with which he controlled parliamentarians, their debates and their outcomes.

That relationship has been sustained by a convenient trade-off between the MPs (majority of them) who have allowed their minds to be stewarded by Museveni’s whims in return for a copious flow of endless patronage in form of money, plum appointments and, for some, guarantee of impunity. This symbiosis between Museveni and a large section of parliamentarians has produced one of the most twisted and duplicitous democracies in the region, with the parliament , the most paramount check on the executive, appearing robust and effective while it is in fact hopelessly hamstrung, busying itself with rubberstamping the president’s wild wishes and fantasies.

The climax to this strange pattern of behaviour was the brazen bribing of MPs in late 2005 to acquiesce in Museveni’s “life-presidency” ambition by deleting the two-term cap on incumbency in the constitution.

If there’s any noticeable legacy thus—regarding the respect and fostering of the role of parliament as a pillar of a strong and well governed state—that President Museveni’s administration will bequeath to the successive leader when he eventually quits power, it will be one of venality and political sleaze, according to Prof. Fredrick Ssempebwa. What Museveni has demonstrated, according to analysts, is how a leader can masterfully use money and privilege to sedate stubborn but economically vulnerable House members and this evolving political culture will characterise parliament for some time in future.

“What has been most outstanding in president Museveni’s relationship with Parliament is his broad use of manipulation and patronage to steer the latter to his political ends,” Ssempebwa said.

To be sure, just about every leader in the world uses patronage to extract loyalty and support for himself. But, according to observers, Mr Museveni’s form of patronage is highly personalised, inimical to development and politically polarising. Most other leaders spread their patronage amongst masses, for instance spending money on public works for which they turn around and claim political capital. “Obote for instance built the 22 hospitals which were in part used to re-energise his support across the areas where those hospitals were located,” commented one senior politician confidentially.
“So over and above his political goals, those hospitals served to improve health care for the masses. This is different Museveni type of patronage where he directly hands out cash to his loyalist MPs.”


Future leaders, according to Ssempebwa’s prognosis, have learned from Museveni how best to extend their overreaching power to parliament and prevent opposition elements from gaining wide support and presenting formidable obstacles to executive requests. There’s one particular technique that Museveni has long adeptly exploited to manoeuvre his way around parliamentary oversight—hosting and feting MPs at State House and his country home of Rwakitura.

It is now almost standard practise: a bill is facing mounting opposition in parliament; some Movement legislators are voicing discontent, a budget request is facing rejection by a House committee, a financial scandal is swirling in the House; the President will quickly invite respective MPs for “tea” at Nakasero or Rwakitura at the end of which MPs are seen to soften their stance on the matter in question or even switching positions altogether.


When Museveni desired a more luxurious (and costlier) presidential jet (G555), in December last year for instance he invited members on the Presidential and Foreign Affairs Committee to Nakasero and cajoled them into succumbing to his unpopular request even as it looked certain to provoke a groundswell of anger.
Still, Museveni prevailed at the end of the day in part because the parliamentary committee supposed to be the people’s first line of defence against executive excesses had yielded perhaps in the face of Museveni’s intimidating gaze at Naksero.

Ex legislator, Mr Nobert Mao summed up Mr Museveni’s manipulation of MPs, “he’s managing a multiparty parliament using movement software.” In a post Museveni Uganda he forecast a brutal backlash against legislators who displayed fierce loyalty to Museveni because, he said, future leaders will not want to be encumbered by the baggage of NRM’s past wrongs. “There will be a purge of loyalists and I think once Museveni departs, Uganda’s parliament won’t be dominated by the NRM,” he said.

Ultimately, the integrity of parliament which has vastly eroded under Museveni’s Movement and NRM administrations will depend on the personality of whichever leader succeeds the incumbent.
What is less in doubt though is that if that leader lifts a page from Museveni’s parliamentary playbook, there’s plenty that should worry Ugandans in trusting their legislators to guard their interests against executive sleaze and corruption.

Epidemics Return Uganda to its Truer Image

ELIAS BRYABAREMA


KAMPALA--When Uganda hosted the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, Chogm, the country was hardly mentioned in most of the American press, arguably the most influential section of the Western media.
The British media though did offer considerable coverage casting Uganda, momentarily, in global news pages, for better or worse. According to the government, the foremost justification for the colossal sums of money spent on organising Chogm2007 was because the event would present the country with something of once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to showcase its supposed bountiful potential to the world.
As to whether that happened during the weeklong Chogm meetings (November 19th-25th) remains unclear.

But if Chogm did indeed market brand Uganda to the world, then President Museveni and his NRM government might already be banging their heads on the walls asking why a cruel misfortune had to strike so soon, instantly wiping out all the gloss newly put on the nation’s face.

Just in a flash, by an act of Nature, Uganda has been lunged back to its standard sub-Saharan African default image: disease, pain and suffering. As November ebbed and sunk on the horizon, Uganda started to hit global headlines as the hemorrhagic fever Ebola tightened its horrific grip on the nation, four days after the end of Chogm2007.

On December 5th that catastrophe was added on weight with Daily Monitor reporting an additional quadruple outbreak of bubonic plague which struck West Nile, Cholera in Hoima and Yellow Fever in Kitgum.

Since then, nearly all the news churned out of Uganda by the global newswires (AFP, Reuters, Associated Press, Bloomberg, Xinhua etc) has been on the Ebola epidemic and little else somehow cementing the traditional world perception of Uganda as just about that of any other sub-Saharan African backwater: nations still susceptible to outbreaks of diseases even as simple as Cholera.

The devastating impact of the current Ebola strike on Uganda’s image is boldly noticeable in the American press which in the first place never bothered to report anything substantially positive about the country’s hosting of Chogm. New York Times reported, “Ebola Kills 19 Ugandans,” on 4th December. Similar stories run in several others major US newspapers.

This is particularly distressing considering that president Museveni has made countless trips to the US to court investors there, only for them to be inundated with the terrifying news of health epidemics trumpeted in their press.

Museveni’s Media Advisor, Mr. John Nagenda ridiculed any derivation of contrasts between Chogm and the Ebola epidemic. “It’s the mindless that can start drawing any links between Ebola and Chogm. This is a natural epidemic that can hit any country.” he said yesterday.

The government, he said, was scrambling to marshal resources and respond adequately so that the epidemics can be blunted as quickly as possible. He was empathic in dismissing the notion that any image mileage that Uganda could have wrung out of successful (some say) hosting of Chogm has already been eroded by the epidemic.

Nagenda could be right that epidemics are natural and that it would possibly be sadistic to start throwing mean arguments around them as cynics are wont to do (are already doing!). But again, as is well known, health catastrophes like cholera are now only a preserve of countries that are trapped in primordial living conditions like those in parts of Uganda and most of sub-Saharan Africa. And even Ebola, which would seem to have no connection with the level of economic development: all its past eruptions have been confined to sub-Saharan Africa; Sudan, Uganda, D. R. Congo and Angola—countries that share just about the same living conditions.

At the end Chogm Museveni, newly energised and soaring from the Chogm success addressed journalists delighting in the success of Chogm and the new global power it had rendered Uganda’s “Gifted by Nature” brand.

Now, the same Nature has, unsympathetic to Museveni, turned malevolent and put everything asunder and dragged the country back to its melancholic existence.