Where would NRM be without the State?

“…The biggest Opposition party, NUP, got 903 votes in a district with five constituencies, while FDC, PPP, UPC scored in the lower 100s, just over a year to the 2026 General Election,” Mr Kirunda wrote.

Mr Kirunda was referring to results that showed that Ms Zubedi Sultana Salim of NUP got 903 votes, followed by Ms Mbale Ingabire of UPC, who got 362 votes, Ms Juliet Musanase of FDC who had 193 votes and Ms Aisha Cyimpaye of PPP, who had 157 votes.

The point that Mr Kirunda was making was that the combined total vote of the Opposition was 1,615 against the combined total of 95,441 votes that the other two candidates, the NRM’s candidate, Ms Rose Kabagenyi, who had a total of 44,982, and the NRM-leaning Independent candidate and eventual winner, Ms Ngabirano Akifeza, who ran away with 50,459 votes.

However, as Mr Kirunda was tweeting away from far away Kisoro, Mr Kituuma Rusoke, the police spokesperson, writing on behalf of the Inspector General of Police, was in Kampala sending a letter to NUP, informing it of police’s decision to suspend its nationwide mobilisation tours.

Mr David Lewis Rubongoya, the NUP secretary general, was quick to call out the police for double standards.

“Each time our activities gain momentum, they (police) must come up with any reason to stop them, while other political actors, especially those linked to the regime, continue to do their activities, including (holding) processions unhindered. We condemn these double standards in the strongest terms,” Mr Rubongoya wrote.

While police has maintained the ban on NUP activities, critics say President Museveni has, on the other hand, been out there campaigning under the guise of a nationwide tour aimed at assessing the impact of the Parish Development Model (PDM) and the four-acre model.

Mr Rusoke will, however, not say why gatherings and processions of groups like the Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU) and the MK Movement before it, or those of others aligned to the ruling NRM, have never been stopped even when some of them have been carried in busy places like Kampala City.

The way things are, while Mr Museveni and the NRM can talk about PDM and four-acre development model, the Opposition will not be allowed to go to the same masses and tell them what alternative policies and programmes they have.

And it is likely that the Opposition would have good programmes that would be more effective in the fight against poverty, but Mr Godfrey Kabyanga, the State minister for ICT and National Guidance, insists that if NUP or any other Opposition party has an alternative, it should be pushing it through Parliament.

“Every alternative that you bring to the people must pass through Parliament. Even PDM passed through Parliament. The nation must go on in a systematic way. If you have choices, you have to first discuss them and agree. Everybody will not come up with his own idea. Then we cannot run this country. Even if you are in power, you are not going to accept that haphazard way of doing things,” Mr Kabyanga says.

Wishing parties dead

That reminds some watchers of matters Ugandan politics of a time when some gentleman told Ugandans that if there was another person with a vision, it would be best that that person went to him for a discussion.

It should, however, be remembered that shortly after he was declared winner of the 2016 General Election, Mr Museveni famously declared that “there would be no Opposition by 2021”.

Some people who claim to have an understanding of the President say the comments were neither in jest nor an accident.

“Deep down, Museveni would rather that the political parties did not exist. He wishes they could die or simply vanish. You just have to look at how the Movement or what we call the NRM today has treated parties since 1986,” a historical member of the NRM/A, who preferred not to be named told Sunday Monitor.

It should be remembered that one of the first things that the NRM did after shooting its way into power was to issue Legal Notice No 1 of 1986, which suspended “all forms of political activities and any other form of political activities” until further notice. The same instrument directed that all forms of gatherings had to be cleared by the police.

In August 1992, the National Resistance Council (NRC) adopted a resolution which led to the suspension of the activities of the parties “in the interim”. This, it was claimed, would help curb sectarian tensions.

The NRC further tightened the shackles in 1993 during debate on the Constituent Assembly (CA) statute of 1993. Parties were barred from fielding candidates in the March 1994 CA elections. Candidates, it was declared, would contest on “individual merit”. During the CA, 199 out of 269 delegates to the CA voted in favour of continuation of “no party rule”.

The CA subsequently constitutionalised the ban on political party activities by adopting and including Article 269 in the Constitution. The Article made it an act of treason for parties to engage in “any activities that may interfere with the Movement political system”. Operation of party branches, holding of political rallies or sponsoring candidates for political office became acts of treason.

NRM’s strength However, while Mr Kirunda was raising questions about the strength of the Opposition, he inadvertently raised questions about the NRMs’ strength. It should be remembered that Mr Museveni, while campaigning in Kapchorwa District in November 2020, claimed that there is no Opposition which he cannot defeat because, according to him, members of the Opposition have no track record of what they have done on national issues.

“There is no Opposition in Uganda which I cannot defeat. They have no track record of what they have done on national issues, so what are they opposing? I don’t see a group that has got a correct position in the politics of Uganda today that can defeat NRM,” Mr Museveni said.

He had prior to that labelled members of the Opposition“ confused people and a few youth who have no jobs”.

Whenever Mr Museveni has made those comments about the Opposition, the question has always been why he and the NRM will not then allow parties to operate normally. Despite the fact that Ugandans voted on July 28, 2005, to return to a multiparty political dispensation, Uganda cannot be said to be a multiparty democracy.

Chained opponents During campaigns ahead of the 2011 and 2016 elections, former FDC presidential candidate Kizza Besigye often equated Mr Museveni to a boxer who claims to be an undisputed heavyweight champion, but who will at the same time disrupt contenders training sessions or have them shackled when they are coming into the ring. The undisputed heavyweight champion, it would seem, only remains “undisputed” because he does not allow for a genuine fight. Mr Kabyanga would, however, have you believe that if contenders for the title are being pegged back, it is because they are not playing by the rules.

“If you are going to fight in a boxing ring, there are defined training grounds. You cannot go to Kisseka market and say ‘I am going to train from here’. You must go to the gym. There are guidelines that must be followed. There are guidelines that they need to follow while soliciting votes or support. Political mobilisation is a regulated activity,” Mr Kabyanga says.

The problem though, is that the regulation that Mr Kabyanga is talking about appears like a maintenance of a requirement reminiscent of the days after the issuance of Legal Notice No 1. Parties are required to get “police clearance” before carrying out any activity. There are cases when the so-called regulation has also bordered on intrusion.

In June, for example, police wrote to the leadership of NUP demanding details about the party’s leadership school. "It is in the best interest of the Uganda Police to ascertain the status of the school, content taught and facilitators. You should not exceed three persons in the meeting," read the June 28 letter, which was signed by Mr Moses Kafeero on behalf of the Inspector General of Police. But Mr Kabyanga defends actions of the police even when they have previously not been known to take similar interest in the training and cadre development programmes of say, NRM.

“It was necessary to give police the course material and all those details because they needed to see whether it was good material. One may say they are going to talk about their values only to start talking about homosexuality,” Mr Kabyanga says.

Yet it is not police alone that has been involved. The country has witnessed incidents where Resident District Commissioners (RDCs) have barred Opposition leaders from certain towns and radio stations, actions which Mr Kabyanga blamed on bad apples in the NRM. “Some of these developments depend on the characters of some of the people involved. I cannot say that NRM has angels. We also have some characters who exaggerate things and cause some bit of problems,” he argues.

Same script Ms Alice Alaso, the coordinator of the Opposition Alliance for National Transformation (ANT), says what is playing out on the political landscape should not come as a surprise. She says it is only following a script. “The script that has been played over the years is the same that is being repeated. The abduction of people, killing of people, killing of political parties... It is the same. Whether it was UPC and DP in the 80s or FDC in the recent past. By 2017, President Museveni had sworn that the FDC would not exist. You know what happened to us in FDC. Then the current fight in FDC. That has forced others to leave the party again. And now the fight in the NUP,” she says.

She adds: “This is the same script being played out to kill political actors, suppress dissent and deny alternative view”. From the foregoing, according to regime critics, it is clear that the political landscape has always been skewed against the political parties. It would in the circumstances be laughable for Mr Kirunda to raise questions about the Opposition’s strength. The Opposition has been growing despite the tough conditions under which it operates. That begs a question. Where would the NRM be without the State?