Defections: Opposition MPs on the move as disgruntled NRM MPs stay put

Ndorwa East is the constituency that Mr Wilfred Niwagaba, the Shadow Attorney General, has represented in Parliament for the last one and a half decades, albeit as an Independent candidate.

Before that, Mr Bashir Lubega Ssempa, the Mubende Municipality MP, had announced that he would be standing for re-election as an Independent candidate.

Before that, Lt Gen Henry Tumukunde had late last month withdrawn from the race for the office of chairperson of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) in Rukungiri District, to protest alleged irregularities in the elections.

"I have decided to withdraw from the Rukungiri District NRM chairperson election, in protest of the irregularities witnessed during the process. This decision comes after serious reflection. My commitment to serve the people of Rukungiri remains unwavering,” Gen Tumukunde wrote.

In Kayunga, the former minister of State for ICT, Ms Aidah Nantaba, who lost to the incumbent, Mr Moses Karangwa, accused her vanquisher of having manipulated the election. She cited voter intimidation and a myriad of electoral irregularities.

Mr Ssempa and Kyokwijuka cite lack of confidence in the party’s internal processes. That, by extension, means that they have very little confidence in the NRM’s electoral commission led by Tanga Odoi.

Lack of confidence in the party’s capacity to organise violence and controversy-free internal processes has hovered over the party since the 2010 primaries.

That partially explains why, in March 2020, many MPs of the ruling NRM threw out proposals in both the Presidential Elections Amendment Bill, 2019, and the Parliamentary Elections Amendment Bill, 2019, that sought to block candidates who suffered defeat in the primaries from participating in elections as Independent candidates.

Violent scenes still played out in the 2020 primaries and are still playing out. The result has been that the list of disgruntled NRM supporters has grown significantly longer since May this year, when the party commenced the process of electing party structures.

One would, in the circumstances, have expected disgruntled members of the ruling party to borrow a leaf from actors in the Opposition who, starting with the last year of the life of the 10th Parliament, invoked the provisions of Article 83(2a) of the Constitution and quit their parties.

The provision gives legislators the licence to cross to other political parties or organisations of their choice during the final 12 months of a term of Parliament.

Opposition movements

NRM members have, however, stayed put even as they cry foul. Actors in the Opposition have, in the meantime, been on the move.

The latest movements officially occurred moments before the June 12 presentation of the Budget for the Financial Year 2025/2026, when Speaker of Parliament Anita Among announced that seven MPs had quit the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) for the newly formed People’s Front for Freedom (PFF).

The seven are the former Leader of the Opposition in Parliament (LOP) and Woman City Representative for Gulu City, Ms Betty Aol Ochan, Kira Municipality MP Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, Kabale Municipality MP Nicholas Kamara, and the Hoima District Woman MP Asinasis Nyakato.

The others are Bukonjo County MP Atkins Godfrey Katusabe, Buhweju County MP Francis Mwijukye, Kyamuswa County MP Moses Kabusu and Bukonzo East MP Harold Muhindo.

Their departure followed the earlier departures of Jinja South West MP Timothy Batuwa and that of Jinja North legislator David Isabirye Aga. Both left FDC for the National Unity Platform (NUP).

Keeping with FDC, the party had already seen Kilak North MP Anthony Akol and Jonam County MP Emmanuel Ongiertho leave for the ruling NRM.

The Democratic Party (DP) has also seen Kyotera District Woman MP Fortunate Nantongo, Kyotera County MP John Paul Mpalanyi, Nakaseke South MP Lutamaguzi Ssemakula, Masaka District Woman MP Joan Namutaawe – a DP-leaning Independent MP – and Ntenjeru South MP Patrick Nsanja, also a DP-leaning MP, leave for NUP.

Both FDC and DP have been plagued by internal fights for quite a while now.

What started as differences in ideology and tactics in the period running up to the 2017 elections that saw Mr Patrick Amuriat Oboi beat Gen Mugisha Muntu to FDC presidency, reached a tipping point in September 2023 when leading party personalities such as Dr Kizza Besigye, Ms Salaamu Musumba, Mr Wasswa Birigwa and Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago, left following weeks of claims that some FDC leaders, including Mr Amuriat, secretary general Nathan Nandala Mafabi and the party chairman, Mr Jack Sabiiti, had received “dirty money” from President Museveni.

Earlier during the 10th Parliament, Arua Municipality MP Kassiano Wadri, Kasese Woman Member of Parliament Winnie Kiiza, and Jinja Municipality East MP Paul Mwiru quit FDC for Gen Muntu’s Alliance for National Transformation (ANT).

DP, too, had been having wrangles for over a decade. The initial fight was over claims that the party’s president, Mr Nobert Mao, intended to deliver DP to Mr Museveni.

That set the stage for fights that culminated in the departure in 2020 of 10 party MPs, including Mr Mathias Mpuuga, Mr Joseph Ssewungu, Mr Medard Sseggona, Ms Betty Nambooze, and Mr Muwanga Kivumbi. Mr Lukwago also left for FDC.

The signing of a cooperation agreement with the ruling NRM in July 2022 opened up another front in the fight there.

Clarity of issues

Whereas the actors cited mostly irreconcilable differences and loss of faith in the leadership of their parties, Mr Primus Atukwase Bahigi, the country director of the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD), thinks that it mostly had to do with insufficient grounding in the ideologies of their parties.

“Sometimes because of the nature of multi-party democracy in most of the African countries, including Uganda, which is not largely based on ideology, contradictions come in and then people think that the best alternative is to start another vehicle where they can express themselves and where they feel their ideas can work,” he says.

He argues that the ideological orientation of party members remains a big challenge. That, he says, often means that people belong to certain organisations because they are either disgruntled or because they believe in individual leaders.

Development resources

That is, however, not to say that other factors do not come into play.

Arguing that the issue of resources for development at constituency level are a major factor in determining which side of the political divide one chooses to belong to, Mr Emmanuel Kitamirike, an associate director at Makerere University’s Public Policy Institute, seems to buy into Mr Museveni’s long held argument that the election of leaders who cannot work with the ruling NRM pegs back service delivery and development.

Mr Kitamirike, a long-time actor in civil society who has since joined academia, says it is evident that those who seek to be effective legislators can only do so when they are voted on a ticket of the ruling NRM.

“People who want to be near power have moved away from the Opposition political parties and either gone back to the NRM or joined the NRM because it is clear that if you want to stand as an MP and do something for your people, you must belong to the NRM. In the Opposition, you can only make noise, but meaningful change at the constituency level can only be guaranteed if you are within the ruling party,” Mr Kitamirike says.

Prof Sabiiti Makara, who teaches Political Science at Kabale University, weighs in saying the resources available to NRM and its candidates diminish the chances of anyone who contests on an Opposition ticket of entering Parliament.

“The NRM is a very big and well-resourced party. Politicians go into politics to get political goods, and there is an abundance of political goods in the NRM compared to goods in any other party in Uganda. People who are in the NRM are really comfortable with those goods,” he says.

Fear factor

The NRM, he argues, does not handle the political Opposition in a civilised manner, often going for the jugular.

“The Opposition is not taken as the opposition is in other countries. The NRM behaves and operates like it is still in the Movement system, where it was a monopoly of power and of political resources. The space is still squeezed. If you are in the Opposition, you are likely to face violence and intimidation. Joining the Opposition is very risky. So even when some of these people in the NRM are dissatisfied or uncomfortable, they would rather stick in there. Who wants to leave a comfortable place in the NRM to go and face it rough in the Opposition?” Prof Makara asks.

Different strokes

It would, however, look like a tale of different strokes and different responses to what would appear to be fundamental disagreements within the different shades of political opinions.

Whereas, as we have already seen, actors from the blue and green sides of the political divide seem to have arrived at the conclusion that their political interests and beliefs were best served by leaving, disgruntled actors from the yellow side of the political divide seem to have chosen to “stay and fight from within”.

Cadres of the NRM have always argued that whereas the party primaries have always been plagued by one weakness or another, the mere fact that they happen is indicative of how democratic the NRM is.

Façade?

Not everyone agrees with that thought. Some think that it actually points to the fact that the primaries are a façade meant to mask dictatorial tendencies, which stretch to the national stage.

The Bertelsmann Stiftung's Transformation (BTI) Index (BTI) 2024, an analysis and evaluation of how developing countries and those in transition go about implementing changes aimed at moving them towards greater democracy reported earlier this year that Uganda’s has retrogressed as a democracy because the NRM deviated from the democratic and liberation ideals that it espoused when it took power.

It pointed to increasing de-democratisation. Decision-making, it pointed out, has become increasingly concentrated in the hands of the President.

“Despite claims of being a democracy by the government and its top leaders, Uganda, at its core, has transitioned into an authoritarian system of rule. In this system, the President wields supremacy over all institutions, and a select few powerful individuals hold more sway than entire institutions themselves,” it notes.

It adds that, “...Museveni’s leadership has become more autocratic, and his administration has deviated from the democratic and liberation ideals proclaimed in 1986”.

Mr Faruk Kirunda, the special presidential assistant in charge of the press and mobilisation, who also doubles as the deputy spokesperson of the President, has always dismissed those conclusions, arguing that Mr Museveni is “an embodiment of a democrat”.

“You know there is a tendency to classify leaders who have stayed for some time in leadership as dictators or autocrats, but that is a language applied by their competitors to attract undue sympathy when they fail to win over the masses,” Mr Kirunda has previously argued.

Museveni factor

Even when he is viewed by some as a dictator or autocrat, there are those who believe that Mr Museveni is the glue that has kept NRM together and inhibited the departure of otherwise disgruntled supporters, even amid a wave of real and perceived injustices committed against them.

“With every electoral cycle, there has been this talk that the President is going to retire, but the NRM has been consistent that ‘No. We are not going to change our captain.’ The NRM has been clear that he is still able to deliver victory... That means that he is still around to give a chance for anyone who is willing to be within the ruling party,” Mr Kitamirike says.

He adds that the party’s position has been strengthened by the clarity and consistency of a message that has always told where the country has been, where it is and where it is headed.

Mr Bahigi weighs in, saying if disgruntled members are staying put, it is because Mr Museveni remains hovering over the NRM and its members like some gigantic sphinx.

“If you observe our political parties, they are largely based on strongman syndrome. The strongman factor cuts across the political divide, from the NRM to NUP and to other political formations. That is a very critical factor,” Mr Bahigi says.

That, I guess, means that there would have been more movement from the NRM if Mr Museveni’s image were not hovering over the NRM.

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