The games Oulanyah plays with the ‘voting machines’

MPs on the floor of Parliament on Tuesday. Photo by geoffrey Sseruyange

What you need to know:

Wisdom: “A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognise it. They say, ‘Huh. It works. It makes sense.’ No party has a monopoly on wisdom. No democracy works without compromise.” - Barack Obama

In trying to help our lawmakers, the “voting machines” comprehend the consequences of the “bad law” they passed last week, Don Wanyama, the Daily Monitor Managing Editor, said in one of his sarcastic facebook posts:

“By passing the police law, you have done us proud. A story is told of an Internal Affairs minister in [Milton] Obote I regime who was asked to review the prisons menu which segregated along racial lines. His response: “prison is not a resort”. Fast-forward, a few years later, accused of treason, the minister was shipped to Luzira. He could not believe what African prisoners were feeding on. He protested only to be reminded: “prison is no resort!” He concludes by reminding our MPs that the biggest test of a law is to put yourself in a victim’s shoes.

Well, the scandalous passing of what human rights defenders called, ‘a draconian law’, whose implicit meaning is to fix the opposition, under the political facade of keeping law and order in a fallacious multiparty dispensation, has demonstrated one thing: That, a duplicitous ‘arbiter’ in murky politics cannot be judicious particularly in a Parliament where a gang of careless politicians normally behave like “voting machines”.
The arbiter in this case is the Deputy Speaker, Mr Jacob Oulanyah, the man who is in the eye of the storm for the wrong reasons. Mr Oulanyah is accused of duplicity in the disputed passing of the Public Order Management Bill, 2011.

He is also held responsible for assisting the ruling party to force through an “apartheid” piece of legislation that seeks to undermine the enjoyment of fundamental human rights and also exclude citizens from governance and holding the government accountable.

Concerted efforts to convince Mr Oulanyah, that the proposed piece of legislation is a prohibition rather than a regulation of public meetings and demonstrations were unsuccessful. In desperation to stop him from making mistakes, people like Arru MP Odonga Otto were forced to go “wild”.

Precedent
For the first time in the history of our Parliament, a member lost his cool as tempers flared; he grabbed documents and ripped them into shreds in front of the Deputy Speaker.
The documents were being used to force through a disputed vote on a backward Bill amid shouting and jumping, calling the deputy Speaker names.

In this case, Mr Oulanyah wanted to prove to the dissenting members that he can have his cake and eat it at the same time. We will not delve into the chaos in the House since most of you followed the story in the press and on social media. But one thing must be clearly understood, the opportunity to build consensus was lost the day Mr Oulanyah chose to reintroduce the Bill in absence of the Opposition side. The Opposition members were observing a three-day boycott of the House, protesting what they called ‘raping’ of the Constitution after NRM members approved Gen Aronda Nyakairima to be a minister for Internal Affairs without necessarily resigning from the army.

The NRM, the party with the majority in Parliament and a few friendly independent members, approved all the controversial clauses in the Bill and when the Opposition returned to the House, Mr Muwanga Kivumbi (DP, Butambala) moved a key motion to recommit Clause 8 which gives the Inspector General of Police unlimited powers to “prohibit” public meetings and demonstrations, in total violation of the Constitution and other international human rights laws.

Therefore, the law our legislators passed, contradicts Article 29 of the Constitution which guarantees freedom of expression and assembly. Mr Kivumbi and other legal minds in the House tried to remind Mr Oulanyah that the Constitutional Court had pronounced itself on the matter and that reinstating police powers to prohibit demonstrations through an Act of Parliament, would in effect violate Article 92 of the Constitution he himself swore to defend when he took office. Surprisingly, in an attempt to save face, Mr Oulanyah decided to use his authority to suspend four independent- minded legislators whom he accused of disrupting the proceedings on the Draconian Bill.

Kadaga absence
All this drama happened when Speaker Rebecca Kadaga was out of the country.
However, when she returned, she simply inflamed the situation which was already fluid. First, Ms Kadaga met Opposition leaders and agreed that mistakes were done in her absence and that there was need to allow the dust to settle and generate consensus before the House reconsiders the disputed piece of legislation. By all standards, such a proposal, was the right way of resolving the stalemate over the Public Order Management Bill and ensure that Ugandans get a good law.

After this meeting, the Order Paper for that day was printed and the consideration of the Bill had effectively been put among the business to follow. But as soon as Mbabazi realised that the Bill had been removed from the Order Paper, he assembled a team of ministers and friendly NRM MPs including Mr Oulanyah to prevail over Ms Kadaga. From this hush-hush meeting, it was eventually decided that a second Order Paper be printed immediately, reinstating the Bill and that Mr Oulanyah chairs the House to pass the Bill without further delays.

Certainly, politics aside, by allowing the NRM side to arm-twist her, Ms Kadaga feared to ride the tiger and squandered the opportunity to demonstrate to Ugandans that she is actually not what they think she is. The failure to control his temper inflamed the situation which was already bad and in the end, Mr Oulanyah is facing a motion against his conduct.

In all this, the question we should all ask ourselves is how did we reach this far? It is an embarrassment to see people who should think for the country, humiliating themselves in front of cameras, to the extent that they no longer listen to the wise counsel.

We cannot continue like this. Ms Kadaga and Mr Oulanyah need to fix what went wrong and move on. They are free to punish the “wild” members, but without addressing the root cause of the awkwardness in the House, we are likely to witness more drama.

Whatever happened is past, but again, Ms Kadaga and Mr Oulanyah should be reminded that a Speaker must be fair to all and most importantly, we can play politics but in whatever decision we make, we must reflect on the dire need to protect the public good.

Thomas Jefferson, an American Founding Father, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and the third President of the United States once said that as a nation, our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.

Struggling country
Unlike the country Jefferson was talking about, our country has not perfected itself. At times, we have struggled to keep the promise of freedom and equality for all our people. We’ve all made our share of mistakes, including the people in Opposition and there are times when our actions in a young democracy have not lived up to our best intentions. But we can still pick up the pieces and cultivate a new path based on justice for all, mutual respect and tolerance.

To the three arms of government, let’s promote harmony and let’s not forget that freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. As Martin Luther King Jr said: “Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.”

Therefore, we can agree to disagree as long as we can present our arguments and let Ugandans decide. It is important for our lawmakers to understand that even with majority, it’s not winning all the time that matters, honest discussions - even and perhaps especially on topics about which we disagree - can help us resist duplicity and egotism.

They can also help us live up to the basic ideals, such as liberty and justice for all, on which serious countries were founded. Whether in Opposition or government, we must all work towards making sure that the country we leave behind for our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.