Will it be Mao to bail out DP ship in rough political seas?

The last time a party delegates’ conference was held in Gulu District was in February 1964 when then ruling Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) converged there.
Fifty six and half years after that conference which ended with Grace Ibingira beating John Kakonge in the race for the all-powerful post of secretary general of UPC, the Democratic Party (DP) is set to have its delegates’ conference there.

There are a few similarities between what was prevailing in UPC and what is going on in DP. Whereas UPC was in power, an ideological struggle was raging on between the so-called communists led by Milton Obote and Kakonge and the so-called capitalists led by Kyabazinga William Wilberforce Nadiope and Ibingira. Kakonge was rigged out, thanks to hundreds of people who Nadiope ferried in from Busoga to vote for Ibingira.

But one cannot describe what is going on in DP as an ideological struggle. The party has been dogged by fights since the February 2010 delegates’ conference in Mbale where Mr Norbert Mao beat Al-Hajj Nasser Ntege Sebaggala to the party’s presidency.

During the campaigns ahead of the 2011 general election, some party members like Erias Lukwago and Mathias Mpuuga opted to join the pressure group Suubi (Hope), which chose to support Dr Kizza Besigye, who was the Inter-Party Cooperation (IPC) candidate, even when Mao was a candidate in the same race.

Opposition to Mr Mao’s leadership gained even more momentum following Mr Museveni’s 2017 NRM day speech in which he described Mr Mao’s right hand man, Mr Mukasa Mbidde, as a “good DP man”. That sparked off accusation that some people in the top leadership of the party were working to “deliver DP” into the hands of the NRM.

Mukono Municipality MP Betty Nambooze then started a campaign dubbed “Good DP Bad DP” which was reportedly aimed at “making DP great again”. It took the intervention of the police on the side of Mr Mao to snuff out the fire that she had ignited, but the troubles have never gone away.
The party has in recent weeks seen some of its most prominent members quit. The first to leave was Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago last month. He joined the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC).

A few days later, 10 DP MPs – Mr Mathias Mpuuga, Mr Joseph Ssewungu, Mr Medard Sseggona, Ms Betty Nambooze, and Mr Muwanga Kivumbi, Mr Allan Ssewanyana, Mr Ssempala Kigozi, Ms Robina Ssentongo, Ms Veronica Namaganda, and Ms Florence Namayanja – were joined by the DP leaning Independent MP Moses Kasibante into joining the National Unity Platform (NUP) led by Kyadondo East MP Robert Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine.

Strength of DP
If one was to try to assess the strength of a party based on the number of votes its presidential candidate gets in an election, or the number of votes that a presidential candidate the party chooses to rally behind, then DP under Mr Mao is an extremely weak party.
In 2011, when he famously declared that he would beat Dr Besigye and come second to President Museveni, Mr Mao managed only 147,917 votes.

In 2016, when DP chose to rally behind the Go Forward candidate, Mr Amama Mbabazi, the former secretary general of the ruling NRM could only manage 136,519 votes, or 1.39 per cent of the total number of votes cast.

So where in light of those results are the “millions who cherish the party’s values” which Mr Mao alluded to in the article ‘DP will rise and shine again – Part II?’ (Sunday Monitor, August 23)
The party’s strength has been in its MPs, most of whom have been winning not necessarily because they were DP candidates, but on their own strength and merit. DP, therefore, needed them more that they needed it.

Brave face
It was not possible to talk to Mr Mao for this article as he did not pick up or return calls to his telephone, but he has been putting on a brave face even when it is looking like DP is crumbling on his head.
In his most recent columns in this newspaper, ‘The Democratic Party shall rise and shine again – Part I & II’ Mr Mao tried to exude confidence in his ability to rebuild DP, but also admitted, albeit inadvertently, that his actions had caused the party some damage.

Admissions
He acknowledged that his leadership had failed to “seize the time and make itself the flag bearer of our national aspirations” as it “watched as a dejected membership drifted into apathy or petty radicalism” and; as “the party leadership has been co-opted into the anti-democratic schemes” of Mr Museveni and the NRM; and as the “twin vices of indiscipline and opportunism has kept the party preoccupied with petty squabbles as opposed to a focused march on the path of power”.

Mr Mao tries to present himself as blameless in all this, but Prof Sabiiti Makara, a teacher of Political Science at Makerere University, says Mr Mao should be held responsible for what is going on at DP.
“Part of it is his leadership style. He is not democratic. He doesn’t allow dissenting voices to come out. He wants his voice to be the only voice,” Prof Makara says.

Mr Crispin Kaheru, the former coordinator of the Citizen’s Coalition for Electoral Democracy in Uganda (CCEDU), says lack of internal democracy is not peculiar to DP.

“This is not a problem unique to DP, you can see it in all the other Opposition parties, including UPC, FDC and JEEMA. It is a systemic issue with the political parties in Uganda. There is generally weak internal democracy,” Mr Kaheru argues.

Prof Paul Wangoola, a DP member who was a member of the National Consultative Council (NCC), which served as Uganda’s Parliament during the days of the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF) and contested against the late former UPC secretary general and minister of Internal Affairs, Dr John Luwuriza Kirunda, for one of the constituencies in Iganga during the 1980 election, however, thinks that one cannot blame the problems in DP on Mr Mao alone. He points an accusing finger in the direction of the NRM.

“We need to reset our thinking and understanding of the problem in Uganda. It is only the arch-dictator who seems to be comfortable. The rest of us are very dizzy. The problems in DP are those in Uganda,” Prof Wangoola says.

Mao fuelling the fires?
Mr Mao has been quite belligerent ever since he took charge at DP – attacking both party and non-party members.

In July 2015, at the height of a disagreement between him and Mr Lukwago over the convening of a delegate’s conference, he used derogatory language to describe the Lord Mayor; hurled insults at Ms Nambooze; attacked and recently described the 11 MPs who quit DP as “spineless” creepers.

Those attacks on the parties’ members, it would seem, left them with no choice, but to cut and run. The problem, according to Mr Kaheru, is aggravated by lack of mechanisms for reconciliation.
“Parties have weak consensus building and dispute resolution mechanisms. There’s a weak ideology to hold the leadership and rank and file together. Based on this, when disagreements arise, it is so easy for parties to splinter,” Mr Kaheru argues.

Between 2011 and 2016, Mr Mao made attacking FDC and its former president Besigye a habit and whereas he in recent times has been calling for the formation of a united front against Mr Museveni and the NRM, he was in 2011 virulently opposed to the candidature of Dr Besigye as a candidate for the Inter-Party Cooperation, of which a pressure group, Suubi, to which some of the DP MPs were aligned.

Such belligerence generally does not endear one to those that he aspires to lead. It also works against any possibilities of an alliance. Matters are not helped by the fact that the NRM is always working to ensure that the waters are always troubled.
“The unspoken co-optation and patronage policy that the NRM pursues against the Opposition parties weakens their standing. All these factors limit coalition or alliance building by Opposition political parties,” Mr Kaheru argues.

Rebuilding?
The last question that Mr Mao poses in his article, ‘The Democratic Party shall rise and shine again - Part II’ was: “Is our party in its current form capable of inspiring Ugandans to grapple with these challenges?”
As he rightly put it, that will not be possible unless, “we collectively resolve to rebuild our party”. It would, therefore, appear that rebuilding the party will be very high on the agenda when the people meet in Gulu, but how does DP intend to go about that process?

Gulu Municipality MP Lyandro Komakech (DP) was recently quoted by sections of the local press as saying the party has embarked on a drive to attract new members and identify candidates for several elective positions.
Prof Makara doubts that much will come of the rebuilding process that is being talked about. He argues that rebuilding a party evolves around pillar, which are lacking.

“Which top leaders is he going to rebuild with? How is it in a state of renewal when key people are leaving? And I want to think that he has been holding onto an empty shell for quite some time now because most of those who recently announced that they had left DP have not been part of it for some time now,” Prof Makara says.

Writing on the 50th anniversary of the Gulu delegates’ conference in 2014, retired ambassador Harold Acemah said the election 56 years ago set the stage for many a historic events such as the power struggle that later emerged between Ibingira/Nadiope and Obote, culminating in the arrest on February 22, 1966, of five Cabinet ministers, the 1966 Crisis and the adoption of a new Constitution.

“The legacy of the Gulu conference continues to cast a long shadow in the corridors of UPC,” Mr Achema wrote in 2014. We now wait to see what mark DP’s Gulu 2020 conference will leave on the party.

Trend
Previous splits, movements in DP

• On December 31, 1964, Leader of the Opposition Basil Bataringaya and five MPs namely, South East Bukedi MP James Ochola; MP South Teso Stanislaus Okurut; MP South Jinja M. K. Patel; MP South West Bunyoro Joseph Magara and Francis Mugeni, MP South Bukedi, joined the ruling UPC.
• June 22, 1966, David Barisigara, MP Kigezi West, crossed the floor to join UPC.
• 1982, DP Chief Whip John Magezi (MP Iganga North West), MP Jinja East Eugene G.N Muzira; MP Kamuli Central David Kantale Kazungu; MP Kamuli West Paul Batumbya; MP Iganga South West David John Kisadha Nabeta; and MP Kamuli East John K. Mpaulo crossed the floor and joined the ruling UPC. They were later joined by Mr Alex Waible, MP Jinja North West.
• 1984, DP vice president Tiberio Okeny, acting secretary general Anthony Ochola and Mr Cuthbert Obwangor, quit DP to form the National Liberal Party (NLP).
• February 2010, Al-Hajj Nasser Ntege Sebaggala announced that he has quit DP to form the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)
• In the run up to the 2015 delegates’ conference, a DP faction led by Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago boycotted the delegates’ conference which later amended the party’s constitution. Mr Lukwago’s group instead headed out to Luweero where they held a rally and opened offices.