NRM sleeping MPs will slip Uganda’s democracy

I am sure most readers are familiar with a popular short story about escapist fantasy of a one Rip Van Winkle, who instead of facing challenges of his home and solve them, took to drinking, fell asleep and woke up 20 years later. To the uninitiated, Rip Van Winkle is a story written by an American author, Washington Irving.

The main character Rip Van Winkle ran away from his wife and family, went into the woodlands where he was offered booze by some people and decided to hide from challenges he had left home by drinking himself to a record 20 years sound sleep. He slept in pre-revolutionary America and woke up in post-revolutionary America.

He slept a British and woke up an American. He slept a subject of Britain and woke up a citizen of independent America. When he woke up, he even told people his head of state was King George III of Great Britain when actually America had been independent and a republic with a president and not a king for 20 years.

Now what is the parallel lesson for NRM. President Museveni has time and again exhorted NRM supporters to vote and send to Parliament MPs who can sleep and wake up later to vote the party positions. He declared in the just ended Jinja by-election campaigns that he prefers sleeping MPs to active MPs.

In line with Musevini’s thinking, sleeping MPs are good and active Opposition MPs are bad. Not long ago while campaigning in the Ruhaama by-election, President Museveni also equated Parliament to a bus park where travellers shout without any collective goal to achieve in mind. He went on to opine that resource allocation is not done in Parliament, but somewhere else and I guess he meant State House or at best Cabinet.

Museveni would prefer sleeping MPs (read Rip Van Winkle) to active MPs like those in the Opposition. To this extent, therefore, is it any wonder that we have in Parliament gender-blind MPs - the likes of Onesimus Twinamasiko, the MP for Bugangaizi East?

Like Rip Van Winkle of the old, MP Twinamasiko has been sleeping in the African Museum and thinks a wife should be beaten into behaviour by the husband.

According to Museveni’s sleeping model of parliamentary democracy, patronage-based voting is superior to issue-based voting. Museveni’s parliamentary model of sleeping MPs, for example, does not mind sending to Parliament a gender-blind MP like Twinamsiko provided when he is woken up from his slumber, he is politically correct and votes the correct line of the Executive.

What is the political moral lesson that we learn from the story of Rip Van Winkle? Rather than escaping from the reality that active opposition MPs point out in Parliament and seek to find solutions to them, NRM has opted to voting sleeping MPs to Parliament in the hope that when they wake up problems will have disappeared.

The sleeping MPs should know that time will not wait for them. They will wake up to the harsh reality like Rip Van Winkle, who could not recognise what he saw in the post- revolutionary America. In fact, Twinamasiko has woken up to the rude shock that wife-beating is no longer tolerated in contemporary Uganda.

Ronald Kibule [state minister for Water], woke up from his slumber to realise that even if the Namasole is not elected, her influence can make him eat his pie.
The sleeping MPs will wake up to realise that change is inevitable. That things are changing even if these MPs are not ready for this change. They will wake up to realise that the national mood is gradually changing from politics of patronage to politics of issues. They will wake up to realise that it will not serve any good to get drunk with politics of manufactured popularity and make reckless and unguarded statements as Twinamasiko has done.
The sleeping MPs will wake up like Rip Van Winkle to find that voters are beginning to consider issues rather than patronage in order to make a choice.

The passage of time will teach these sleeping MPs that they should think of policy-based voting. They should think of issues such as equitable access to quality education, medical care and productive resources.
They will wake up to realise that voters will not accept to live in two Ugandas. The Uganda of those who go to UPE schools and that of those who go to international schools.

When Rip Van Winkle woke up and was asked how he voted, he told them he was a faithful servant and subject of King George III. In a similar way, when the sleeping MPs would be asked how they voted in Parliament, they would say, they voted what was agreed long ago in the NRM Parliamentary Caucus.

The Rip Van Winkle political model of sleeping until an MP is woken up is not what was expected of revolutionary politics like the one we were promised under the fundamental change.

Citizens should vote active MPs, not sleeping MPs. Parliament is not a space for sleeping as it is not a lodge. It is a space for exchange of ideas. Parliament is not for Rip Van Winkles, who sleep away challenges facing the country.

Mr Ndebesa is a lecturer in Makerere University. [email protected]