Surprising significance of NRM CEC elections
I spent about a week at home, happy to visit my family after a long time. As is often the case when I have taken months without going to the village, there was a surprise that got me asking questions.
On my first day in Nebbi, I noticed more than five posters of women vying for the party flag of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) for the Nebbi District Woman Member of Parliament in one corner. I did not know some of them but I was impressed.
Surely women’s empowerment had found its home in Nebbi.
Then that turned into incredulity as I learnt that there were actually 13 women interested in that slot. Ten of them are competing for the NRM flag, including the incumbent, Ms Aol Jackline.
One is contesting on the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) ticket while two are independent contestants. Only one woman is interested in the Padyere County NRM ticket.
Some people suggest that the huge interest in the NRM flag has to do with the popularity of the party or its mass nature. But there could be other explanations.
It is also possible that such interests have to do with the perception of the performance of incumbents. After all, neighbouring Zombo District has no competition for the party’s flag for woman MP.
This interest in the NRM flag is quite deceptive. Over a decade ago, Ms Sylvia Tamale had in When hens begin to craw noted that the “the right of women to participate in politics as autonomous actors is still greatly curtailed in both overt and covert ways”.
Making sense of the politics of patronage in the 1990s, Tamale concluded that ‘resource-poor women (and men) in the context of an underdeveloped economy have little choice but to depend on the resource-controlling although even resource-rich women, are unlikely to make it outside the NRM in many areas.
The dynamics often change when women contest with each other, where it becomes an issue of who is more loyal. If anything has demonstrated the extent to which blind loyalty pays, it would be the race between Ms Rebecca Kadaga and Ms Persis Namuganza.
It was initially exciting to see Ms Namuganza rise to the occasion. But that quickly deteriorated into violent verbal attacks on Ms Kadaga.
Some of the charges against Ms Kadaga were that she is disloyal to the party and the President, along with being an old woman.
Whenever the race between Kadaga and Namuganza came up, it started with ‘the 62-year-old legislator’ referring to Ms Kadaga and ‘the 34-year-old Namuganza’ with her youth fronted as the biggest quality of leadership.
While age did not seem to matter in the other contests, it was ‘the issue’ in this particular race, signifying the double standards women face.
The age card is also a trap women fall into. That someone tries to seek an election solely to prove that their degree of loyalty is greater than the other or simply selling their youth, particularly in a position that is supposed to be the voice of women, is troubling.
Such attitudes have led to the perception that women in politics are only good as praise singers of the President and not autonomous actors in politics.
As I write this, Ms Kadaga has decisively won, scoring 6,776 votes against Namuganza’s 3,882 votes to keep her position as the second national vice chairperson of NRM (female). I congratulate her.
The surprising significance of this election is that without the one reserved seat for women, there probably would have been no woman elected to CEC.
The other significance is that as many as about 3,000 voters charging against Kadaga see objectivity, tolerance and decency towards other political actors, which she has tried under difficult circumstances, even as a façade, to demonstrate in her leadership of Parliament, as an unforgivable sin. In their world, other actors do not deserve to be treated with respect.
During the week that I was in West Nile, I asked several supporters of the NRM party about this race.
I was amazed by the extent to which they had bought into the narrative that Ms Kadaga is a traitor working with the Opposition to fail the NRM and the President. Vilifying Ms Kadaga for attempting to be civil, as Speaker of Parliament was an all-time low.
The challenge for the NRM is to impute it on their supporters that despite enjoying greater support, they should respect other actors.
The challenge for young people in politics is to be the face of decency, respect and dignity in politics, doing differently. There has to be ample room for civility and a small spirit of inclusion.
While it is exciting to see that 10 women are competing to represent the NRM in Nebbi, it is also depressing to see how we have lost the battle for diversity and plurality in politics.
Ms Maractho is the head and senior lecturer, Department of Journalism and Media Studies at UCU.
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