Will CEC dare choose Kadaga, Oulanyah or declare race open?

Speaking at the close of a three-week retreat of the MPs-elect of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party at Ngoma Government Farm in Luweero District, the party chairman, Mr Yoweri Museveni, indicated that he has capacity “to say no.”

Whereas the remarks were spoken in the context of what he perceived to be unnecessary delays by Parliament to expedite the appropriation of funds for projects that he considers key, coming amid a feisty fight between the former Speaker of the 10th Parliament, Ms Rebecca Kadaga, and her former Deputy, Mr Jacob Oulanyah, for the speakership of the 11th Parliament, the remarks were deemed to have been a dig at Ms Kadaga, who was not in attendance.

A few days prior to that, Mr Museveni had held separate meetings with newly elected MPs from the different regions of the country.

Butembe County MP elect, Mr David Livingstone Zijan, revealed that the group from Busoga had told Mr Museveni during what was akin to a mini-post elections assessment exercise that the reversal that he suffered in Busoga sub-region, which the presidential candidate of the National Unity Platform (NUP), Mr Robert Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine, took with 437,059 votes against Mr Museveni’s 404,862, was down to his failure to address the sugarcane question and the brutality visited on the fishing communities by soldiers guarding the waterbodies.

According to Mr Zijan, Mr Museveni said the issues in Busoga were “a problem of leadership,” which was construed as another dig at Ms Kadaga, who is accused of having failed to deliver the Busoga vote.

Hostile region

Anger has been building up in Busoga for a while now over the failure to address the sugarcane question. Sugarcane prices crushed from Shs187,000 to Shs96,000 in January this year, but that is at the mills. A tonne goes for as little as Shs40,000 in the fields.

Mr Museveni’s promise to set up a sugar mill to crush what the existing mills cannot take up has since become another statistic on a long list of unfulfilled promises that includes, among others, roads, ferries and cash for moving farmers in the region into commercial farming.

Poverty, which according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos), stands at 35.7 per cent in Busoga, was also another problem. 

Mr Daudi Migereko, who represented Butembe County in Parliament between 1996 and 2016 and was a member of Mr Museveni’s Cabinet, says it played a part in the outcome of the elections.

“Poverty, unemployment and failure to secure markets for farmers’ sugarcane yet a majority of farmers had successfully turned to sugarcane growing were major factors. The sugarcane issue compounded the poverty conditions,” Mr Migereko told Sunday Monitor in a previous interview.

The State minister for Cooperatives, Mr Fredrick Ngobi Gume, who comes from Kaliro, one of three of Busoga’s 11 districts that voted for Mr Museveni, says the electorate was generally hostile towards flag bearers who attempted to campaign for Mr Museveni.

“In some areas, the electorate, especially the youth, were quite hostile. They would openly tell you, ‘do not talk about Museveni here. Just ask for your own vote and leave,” he says.  

Most flag bearers were intimidated into not talking about Mr Museveni’s candidature.

Stopping Kadaga

People close to Ms Kadaga believe that she has been the subject of a sustained effort to stop her. A very powerful retired army General is rumoured to have bankrolled the vice chairperson of the Opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party, Ms Salaamu Musumba, when she challenged Ms Kadaga for the Kamuli Women MP seat in the January polls.

Ms Musumba, however, denies having collaborated with Ms Kadaga’s detractors in the NRM. She instead accuses Ms Kadaga of blackmailing her in order to draw sympathy and support.

“Kadaga believes she is the president in waiting and that is what drives her,” Ms Musumba told Sunday Monitor in a previous interview.

The same General is rumoured to be bankrolling Mr Oulanyah. The strategy is said to be to ensure that Ms Kadaga is not a candidate when the vote is held on May 24. 

But will CEC be the tool that will stop Kadaga?

NRM’s vice chairperson for eastern Uganda, Mr Mike Mukula, who is also a member of CEC, declined to comment about the matter saying, it would be premature for any member of CEC to comment about the race for speakership.

“CEC is like a court. You cannot make a ruling on a matter unless it has been brought before you. Right now, we do not even know who wants to be Speaker. We only hear. We can only know after the [NRM] electoral commission led by Mr Tanga Odoi, makes a presentation [to CEC],” Mr Mukula says.

Mr Mukula says CEC “will evaluate the candidates based on a criteria that will be set by CEC” before forwarding its decision to Parliament.

Dr Tanga Odoi says the official launch of the race for the speakership can only take place after CEC’s meeting tomorrow, Monday, May 16.

“We are going to present guidelines for the election of Speaker for debate. Once adopted, I will then call for expression of interest as chairman of the electoral commission,” Dr Tanga Odoi says.

NRM’s communications director, Mr Emmanuel Dombo, says whereas Mr Museveni has called a meeting of CEC tomorrow, it is highly unlikely that a decision on the speakership will be made. 

“That one (decision on speakership and deputy speakership) cannot be. Maybe the modalities on who it is going to be decided. But as for a decision, I don’t think because there should be another meeting later,” Mr Dombo says.

The agenda for Monday’s meeting had not been released by late yesterday morning.

Which way CEC?

Both Ms Kadaga and Mr Oulanyah have already expended considerable time and resources on the campaign. None has expressed a willingness to bow out of the race for the other. Would CEC, therefore, back one against the other?

Prof Sabiiti Makara, who teaches Political Science at Makerere University, does not think so.

“I do not see CEC endorsing any of the two. First of all, both are members of CEC. Both have regional blocks backing them. Oulanyah has the backing of the north while Kadaga has the backing of the east and both are power houses. My prediction is that CEC will say let them go and contest freely,” Prof Makara says.

He adds that says such a scenario would be great for internal cohesion as it would not be seen to infringe on the rights, or even aspirations, of any of the two candidates. Besides, he says, there is no real danger of the NRM losing the Speaker’s post.

“Zeroing in on one of the candidates would have been necessary if there was any risk of an Opposition candidate taking the chair, but that is highly unlikely,” Prof Makara says.

The Opposition candidate in the race for the Speaker’s job is Kira Municipality MP-elect Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, who most people rate as an outsider in the race.

Would CEC stop Kadaga?

The big question now is whether CEC can force Ms Kadaga to bow out of the race. Mr Museveni already indicated in his speech in Ngoma that the party has the capacity to stop anyone, but at what cost?

Ms Kadaga is arguably the most influential person in Busoga right now. Busoga second deputy premier, Mr Osman Ahmed Noor, says one is bound to find people in all districts of Busoga who are in one way or another indebted to Ms Kadaga.

“She has worked for the region. One will be able to find people all over Busoga who will give her credit for a job, business or project that they are engaged in. People will naturally rally behind such a person,” he says.

The decision to move against her can, therefore, only be informed by the NRM’s strategy going into the next general election.

Kadaga’s strategy

It was not possible to talk to Mr Maurice Kibalya, the Bugabula South MP-elect who is heading Ms Kadaga’s re-election bid, but word from around Parliament seems to suggest that Ms Kadaga would not be agreeable to a CEC decision that would order any of them out of the race.

Our sources indicate that Ms Kadaga, whose ally in the race for the position of Deputy Speaker is believed to be Mr Thomas Tayebwa, is willing to contest as an independent candidate if CEC makes a “disagreeable” decision. 

But Prof Makara says such a development would only hurt the NRM.

“If a scenario where Ms Kadaga stood as an independent candidate arose it would hurt the NRM. There are very many people inside the NRM who want her back. And if she stands as an independent candidate and wins it means that the NRM loses in away,” Prof Makara argues.

It was not possible to talk to Ms Kadaga for this article, but sources in Parliament suggested that in the event that she suffers defeat as an independent candidate, she will resign from Parliament and quit active politics.

Busoga has a very interesting bit of history when it comes to disengaging from political parties that it has previously associated with.

In the 1960s, it was predominantly UPC, but quit following the arrest on February 1966 of Agriculture minister Mathias Ngobi and the subsequent imprisonment of Kyabazinga William Wilberforce Kadhumbula Nadiope.

Only two MPs, Mr Romano Masiga and Patrick Mwondha, were elected on a UPC ticket during the 1980 elections. 

Going by results from January’s poll, Busoga seems to be gravitating. Would the NRM dare kick out the biggest influencer that it still has in the region? That is the question.

Members Of The Central Executive Committee (CEC) Of NRM  

Yoweri K. Museveni, National chairperson

Moses Kigongo, 1st national vice-chairperson

Rebecca Kadaga, – 2nd national vice-chairperson

Jacob Oulanyah, – Vice chairman, Northern

Dr Chris Baryomunsi, – Vice chairman, Western

Godfrey Kiwanda Ssuubi, – Vice chairman, Central

Captain Mike Mukula, – Vice Chairman, Eastern

Singh Katongole, – Vice chairman, Kampala

Aleper Simon Peter, – Vice chairman, Karamoja