POST ELECTION VIOLENCE IN UGANDA; A FOCUS ON THE 2011 POLLS.
METHODOLOGY OF THE PRESENTATION;
An introduction on the subject matter of the paper that comprises of the reality about the electoral procedure of Uganda, it’s likely results on the Nation and the people at large.
Uganda’s political environment and the constitutional establishment of the electoral terms.
The current political contentious issues that definitely shape the outcomes of the elections. Some of these issues will include; The Electoral commission of Uganda,
A focus on the 34 political parties in Uganda,
The Interparty cooperation,
The NRM party (National Resistance Movement).
A picture of the general road to elections. Is it going to be democratic or is it going to be a perpetuation of the violence that characterizes most of the elections in Africa?
What are the likely consequences? Is it going to be violence?
And lastly a discussion from the members of IJM.
A post election period denotationally refers to that period when the choosing of a leader has been finished. Usually during this period there are consequences that follow and have a great impact on the politics of the country in which the elections are held. These consequences will depend on the manner in which the elections have been handled. Unfortunately in most parts of Africa the consequences that often follow defy the logic of the rule of law, democracy, Human Rights, and the freedoms of the people said to be protected by the Constitution. So that what results are the heinous crimes committed against humanity like the case was in Kenya where 1000 people died in post election violence clashes.
In Uganda the rules of the game of elections are handled with the interaction of four major institutions and these include the election management unit (the EC), the political parties, the legislature, and the courts. These institutions of governance are meant to ensure democratic accountability and increase the likelihood of free and fair electoral contests. Accountability is here understood to mean the ability of a given political community to check the excesses of political leaders, prevent anarchy or arbitrary rule and foster the rule of law. However it is important to remember that Democratic accountability is unlikely to evolve unless vibrant institutions of electoral governance and democracy are established.
To predict the outcomes of the 2011 polls we shall closely study how the previous election were handled and analyze whether the institutions guiding the electoral process in the period before, during and after the previous elections critically handled their roles. A question is thence posed; did these institutions really indicate a step toward an institutionalized democracy? Or was it pure political expediency that negates the concept of democracy and undermines election integrity?
An even more ambitious undertaking of this presentation is to elucidate more on the reality that surrounds the politics of Uganda.
The National Resistance Movement came into power in 1986 and it vowed never to rule in the shadow of its predecessors by protecting Ugandans from the horrible experience they had gone through in the hands of leaders like Amin. The party therefore vowed to ensure a steady democracy, rule of law and promotion and protection of Human Rights. However the NRM party has to some extent abandoned these virtues in the struggle to keep on leading Uganda.
The party has fallen victim to the evil it had planned to destroy. As the old saying goes, power is good but complete power corrupts indeed with the NRM acquiring complete power its reasoning has been gravely clouded with and addictive urge to remain in power and at all costs it has decided to remain in power. Perhaps explaining why the barbarism of post election violence will for a long time haunt Uganda.
Post election violence has become a cancer in Africa in fact it has become acharacteristic of elections to the extent that it has now become normal for elections to be coupled with violence in Africa. This is because African leaders never find it easy withdrawing from presidency as they hate losing the privileges that follow and the fear of being held accountable for the mistakes of their administrations. Due to this, they really need to clobber the opposition and all forms of criticism with the aim of staying in power this is the real cause of violence in Uganda and Africa at large. Leaders who deliberately refuse to step down even after they have out lived their resourcefulness.
The opposition has been accusing the NRM party that it is in the process of creating a violent militia to deploy in the elections; however the NRM party denies these allegations calling them baseless and senseless. Despite of all these allegations the opposition is trying hard to see that what happened in Kenya at the end of 2007 and in Zimbabwe at the beginning of 2008 does not happen in Uganda in 2011 so they have signed a protocol to work together with the NRM on poll electoral standards.
Ugandans are now somewhat optimistic about the 2011 polls saying that they will be free and fair since the international community has taken a keen interest in Ugandan politics. Louis Moreno Ocampo the ICC chief prosecutor spoke out on this issue and he said that,” Hague based court would pursue any perpetrators of any plitical violence in Africa”. Secondly the Obama administration persuaded Congress to take steps and direct Secretary of state Hillary Clinton to closely monitor preparations for the 2011 National elections in Uganda and help ensure they are free and transparent. Now that’s the good part, the bad part is that a new report by the human rights watch finds that the Ugandan government’s failure to investigate and prosecute politically motivated violence around previous National elections has reinforced a culture of impunity in the country, the ugly part of it all is that the report warns that continued impunity of political violence in the run up to Uganda’s 2011 national elections could sow the seeds of civil unrest. Too much for the optimism.
The paradox however is that while the president attributes most of the violence during and after elections to the indiscipline of the candidates, he indirectly champions the perpetuation of his legacy through a system that does not allow free and fair elections using violence and intimidation to instill tension and fear in the opposition. It is very important to remember that violence and intimidation undermines the credibility of Uganda’s presidential elections.
It is highly likely that two things may arise out of the 2011 polls and these are; violence and a coalition government and as a way of resolving the former the latter( coalition government) may arise just like how it was in Kenya with Kibaki and Odinga or in Zimbabwe between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangarai. This is my hypothesis on what the 2011 polls are likely to breed. The harassment of journalists and editors, self censorship, inequality in media access, irregularities in the electoral registration of voters and clobbering the opposition are ironically the true paraphenalia with which the 2011 polls will be manned.
The current political contentious issues that weave the political fabric of Uganda are worth discussing about. Uganda has a plethora of issues that will create complexities in the forth coming elections these include; the issue of the Buganda Kingdom and how it has chosen to be indirectly political, The said incompetence of the Electoral commission, the involvement of the military in the campaign process, the various political parties in the country, and the newly founded Interparty cooperation. These issues need delicate handling and I will carefully dissect each and every one of them.
THE KINGDOM OF BUGANDA;
When it comes to the question of Buganda many complexities arise, as we all must have learnt this kingdom’s interests are not in tandem and have never been with the interests of the ruling party. Buganda has always hated being subordinated to the central government since the idea of regaining its autonomy has repeatedly been gagged down and most annoyingly baffled by the central government. In fact to take you back in history the 1958 elections of the first legislative council representatives were boycotted by Buganda, a kingdom that demanded special recognition within the state of Uganda. That is how bad the situation went at the time. Over the years the disagreements between this once superior kingdom and the central government became uncontrollable and the climax of these strong differences resulted in the storming of the kabaka’s palace in 1966 by Obote who later pronounced himself Head of state. The kingdom was thence done away with but only for a while as Museveni later restored the cultural institutions with an aim of painting a democratic picture. ironically the kingdom has now become one of Museveni’s most worrying troubles. They say history repeats its self and what we are looking at is a threatening and some how ripe rebirth of the events of 1958 and 1966.Given this short historical background, how does the issue of Buganda affect the forth coming elections?
It is no longer a secrete that Buganda has gone political in fact some officials with in the Mengo government have decided to stand for political posts with the aim of gaining a stronghold within the politics of the central government. In doing this they plan on gaining a political say that will in turn benefit their kabaka and the interests of the kingdom at large, secondly some political parties on the opposition are using the kingdom as a tool of criticism against the Museveni administration which he has not taken lightly, thirdly Buganda through her sensitization campaigns has amassed gargantuan support from the Baganda who are the largest ethnic tribe in Uganda. This is clearly political and very threatening to the smooth running of the 2011 polls and above all a clear threat to Museveni. The central government cannot dance to Buganda’s tunes and the only way to curb this threat will be through the use of violence and intimidation just like in 1966.
THE IMCOMPETENCE OF THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION;
Elections are central to the democratization process and serve as instruments for delegating authority from citizens to representatives. For this authority to be effectively delegated, the electoral process must be perceived to be fair by the voters, parties ,candidates and the civil society(Elklit&Reynolds,2002).To ensure legitimacy, the electoral process hinges on the perception among voters and candidates that the process has been conducted in a way that does not, in advance ensure a certain outcome (Przeworski,1991).To ensure legitimacy the electoral process should therefore be regulated by constitutional rules and special legislation as well as by cultural norms developed to govern the behavior of the actors (Julius Kiiza,Sabiti Makara and Lise Rakner) The electoral commission should therefor be free from political forces.
This institution is established under Article 60 of the Ugandan constitution and its functions are clearly stipulated under Article 61 they include; ensuring regular, free, and fair elections, organizing, conducting and supervising elections, voter education,demarcation of constituencies, publication and declaration in writing of the results, and any other functions that parliament or the law may direct. These are the true constitutional functions of the Electoral commission in Uganda.
Unfortunately there have been breaches of the constitutional functions mentioned herein due to the influences of political powers, the Ugandan Electoral commission has only been a tool of the executive as was witnessed in 2006 where it was held accountable for the immense irregularities in the presidential elections. Stooges that must sympathize with the current government are the ones appointed making the commission gullible to the decisions of the executive. The recent scenario has been that of threatening to boycott the commission’s participation in the electoral procedure if the chairman was not removed, reports on the irregularities in the voter’s registry have been published thus showing how incompetent the commission really is. Ugandans are now convinced that the electoral commission is a sham and has become a frigate with which the executive intends to further its political impropriety and expedient goals.
With such a reputation the commission is grooming a hostile violence that will injure this nation and its innocent citizens.
THE MILLITARY;
It is a known fact that this ingredient cannot miss at one point or another in the campaigns. This tool is the parent of fear, intimidation, and violence in the political arena that the NRM largely presents to it’s competitors. A militia will be deployed to deal with all the issues that cannot be resolved in dialogue and this with no doubt makes violence an inevitable stage during and after the elections. It is the tool with which Museveni will clobber the opposition.
THE VARIUS POLITICAL PARTIES IN UGANDA;
There are 34 political parties in Uganda that are registered by the electoral commission. The ugly truth however is that these parties are not one in ideology and they have even gone a head to criticize themselves.Uganda lacks a united opposition to counter the might of the NRM. This confusion creates a violence that usually gives the NRM a chance to always out maneuver them and as a result they turn to violent measures in contest of the election results. Fortunately a coalition has been made by some parties. This is a great plan but scholars criticize this master plan as pointless and call it a loose coalition that will only ripen conflicts of interest and besides out of the 34 parties it is only 5 parties that are in this coalition. Uganda People’s Congress withdrew from the idea due to its long time differences with Buganda. It should be noted that some of the parties in the coalition are pro Buganda autonomy, Democratic party also declined from this alliance due to its differences with the Forum for democratic change. It is not a surprise that this very confusion is one of the greatest contributors of post election violence. Our opposition lacks singleness of purpose.
In fact now that politics has been commercialized by the greedy politicians some political parties are simply formed because they also want to enjoy robbing public money. It is no longer about service but rather how to profit from politics which is another counted contributor to post election violence. No one seems to care.
The road to the 2011 polls is a bumpy and messy one the political actors are insensitive of what may occur and the likely consequence will be VIOLENCE. The challenge now is how does someone like you and I help to curb this evil? In other words what are the likely solutions that will stop this?
