MP Ssegona needs to think on his clever idea of electing LoP

Mr Medard Lubega Segona, the member of Parliament for Busiiro East (Wakiso District) is pushing for an idea that sounds clever. The said idea is now the subject of a Parliamentary Bill on its ‘sure way’ to an Act of Parliament (Law).
And what are the particulars of the idea? That the holder of the office of Minority Leader (styled in Uganda as Leader of the Opposition in Parliament), should be elected by members of all opposition political parties.

And the arguments? That since the Speaker of Parliament is elected, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament is elected, the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament should ‘also’ be elected. Sounds clever? Yes. Sounds like the argument of a person who thinks the status quo (where NRM is in power and FDC as the second largest party in Parliament) will always remain. Sounds NRM? Yes.

The idea of MPs retaining an organic relationship with the mother party (secretariat) was informed by a historical event in that very Parliament. The said historical event can be captured by creative people as the Ben Kiwanuka-Basil Bataringaya Curse.

Kiwanuka was the president general of the Democratic Party (DP), which is Ssegona’s mother party. But after independence, Kiwanuka was not a Member of Parliament. So, another DP MP in the name and shape of Basil Kiiza Bataringaya became the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament.

But with the heady politics of the 1960s, he (Bataringaya, the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament), crossed over and joined the ruling party (UPC), leaving DP with an empty can. What followed, as they say, is now history.

So, the status quo where the Opposition party with majority MPs appoints the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament was an attempt to cure the Kiwanuka-Bataringaya Curse. And it can then be argued that Ssegona is playing with akalhayirire (fate in Lhukonzo). If Ugandan MPs are left alone without any responsibility to their parties, we would be exposing them to the vagaries of political self-interest. And our experience of the 1960s was testimonial reference benchmarks for the framers of 1995 Constitution and consequent laws relating to the management and political parties and actors.

So, what does Ssegona’s clever idea mean? The office of Leader of the Opposition in Parliament is more important to Opposition politicians than the presidency of the republic (and liberation of the country). In other news, the NRM has started off the journey to 2021 (and beyond with a sabbatical retreat for the party’s Central Executive Committee in the wilderness of Murchison Falls Conservation Area.

The retreat does not have an agenda, but thematic areas for discussion. And I asked myself: How would one archive the outcome of such a discussion? Would they be formatted as resolutions or proceedings? Or as is always the wont of village meetings, would the youngest of the ‘meeters’ just be asked to capture the rhythm and tone of the discussion into free-verse phrases for further management?

Yet, even with my lugezigezi, I know that retreats do not need to have agenda. Retreats are about sharing and appreciation of ideas feeding thematic areas. In most retreats, people share or present papers, which are later discussed. The adoption of ideas derived from the retreat papers are then subjected to a formal meeting (complete with an agenda) at which resolutions are made.

But before I leave NRM alone, item Number 2 (tagged as the amendment of the Constitution) of the three thematic areas of discussion was ambiguous: Was the Central Executive Committee going to discuss the amendment of the NRM constitution or the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda?