Kadaga rides the tiger

The expelled NRM MPs jubilate after Speaker Kadaga said they would keep their seats. pHOTO by Geoffrey Sseruyange

What you need to know:

In our murky politics, being a Speaker in a one-party dominated multi-party Parliament is not easy. It requires honesty, judicious decisions that uphold the rule of law and most importantly, putting the country first.

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people - Martin Luther King, Jr.

When the invisible hand drew Speaker Rebecca Kadaga into temptation two years ago, she sought to block the recalling of the House in what became the “oil debate”.

In this column, I advised her to stop posturing and ride the damn tiger. I am glad she listened and in spite of the political pressures, she remained steadfast and in the end, the oil debate that gave birth to oil laws took place.

In our murky politics, being a Speaker in a one-party dominated multi-party Parliament is not easy. It requires honesty, judicious decisions that uphold the rule of law and most importantly, putting the country first. But in all this, to survive this political tide, Ms Kadaga has no choice but to ride the tiger.

By allowing the “cowards” in the House to withdraw their signatures in a bipartisan petition that sought to recall the House to discuss the Separation of Powers resulting from the mysterious death of former Butaleja Woman MP Cerinah Nebanda and the arrest of outspoken legislators, Ms Kadaga moved a step back in the political wastebasket.
In the end, this petition collapsed on peculiar grounds, rather “political grounds” and we moved on.

At a time when cynics were predicting doom, Ms Kadaga on Thursday moved to prove to the country that it is possible to stick to the rule of law and match towards the realisation of Vision 2040.
She also attested to the fact that regardless of the “big man” malaise, it’s possible to detach the affairs of the ruling party from the structures of a government in power.

In all fairness, under no circumstance should a ruling party constitution supplant the tenets of a national Constitution.

As one of the NRM party leaders, Ms Kadaga sat in the Central Executive Committee meeting that expelled the four blunt MPs; Theodore Ssekikubo (Lwemiyaga), Wilfred Niwagaba (Ndorwa East), Barnabas Tinkasiimire (Buyaga West) and Muhammad Nsereko (Kampala Central) from the NRM party but this did not ‘corrupt’ her judgement.

Without reference to in-depth meaning of Article 83 (g) and the power of the people in Article 1 of the 1995 Constitution, the NRM Secretary General wrote to the Speaker on April 15, asking her to declare their seats vacant and force by-elections in their respective constituencies. Another MP, Vincent Kyamadidi got a three-month suspension.

But in her landmark judgement on Thursday, Ms Kadaga invoked the unforgettable words of William Lenthall (1591-1662), one of the valiant speakers of the House of Commons, who took the bull by the horns in what later came to delineate the independence of the Parliament in a free and democratic society.
When King Charles I, an absolute monarch forced his way into the Chamber and demanded that the Speaker identifies the five disruptive MPs so that they could be arrested, Lenthall stood by them.

He was a timid Speaker, treated with less respect, unable to control the proceedings in the House.

But on January 4, 1642 when King Charles I entered the House of Commons to seize five ‘rebel’ MPs, he behaved with great prudence and dignity. According to Wikipedia, having grabbed the speaker’s chair, he looked around in vain to isolate the ‘rebels’, the King turned to the speaker standing below, and demanded that he identifies the rebels.

Lenthall replied: “Your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor ears to hear, nor tongue to speak in this place except as directed by this House, whose servant I am.”

Now, 371 years later, Ms Kadaga was asked to expel the “rebellious” legislators. She reminded those who wanted the members expelled that there was no provision in the law and that the reactions and powers of the Speaker should always be clearer when the person of a member of Parliament is threatened or its rules are challenged.

That for Parliament to function well, it must be independent of political machinations and its members should speak freely without fear of disciplinary proceedings.

The lesson from Kadaga’s ruling is that the strength of the system of representative democracy is that it makes provision, through the Constitution, law and political institutions, for limitations on the powers which are exercised by governmental authorities as well as by private associations and groups.

It provides institutional checks and balances. Certainly, a weak Speaker is bad news for democracy and at worst kills institutions, accountability, good governance transparency and rule of law.
Going forward, the NRM threat to petition the Constitutional Court notwithstanding, using Kadaga’s ruling, MPs must build courage to hold back their fear and begin addressing issues.

Likewise, Ms Kadaga‘s courageous stance is worthy of replication in the budgeting process if Parliament is to play any meaningful role in development. Her courage should not be vulgarised, she is trying to help fearful MPs wake up and speak.

Much is expected from Parliament - the public wants value for money, accountability, transparency, good governance and better services.
This should be the main focus of the 9th Parliament and without fear of expulsion, the NRM MPs; the majority in the House, must make the institution of Parliament relevant.

Last year, we failed to fix the sick healthcare system and the other financial year, we failed to fix teachers’ salaries yet financial indiscipline, poverty and unemployment are omnipresent.
As a country, we seem to have nose-dived because of a House that fears to act even when they have the means to do so. The sooner our representatives in Parliament learn to speak up, the better for the people.

In our typical African setting, the arms of government are equated to the three cooking stones that make a meal possible.