Speaker race: Will it be Kadaga or Oulanyah?

When his presence was announced at Kololo Independence Grounds during President Museveni’s inauguration, both Speaker Rebecca Kadaga and Deputy Speaker Jacob Oulanyah received mixed reaction from the National Resistance Movement (NRM) supporters who had turned up.. 

One got loud cheers, which lasted for minutes, while for the other, it was rather muted. Going by that, one may conclude who the NRM fanatics prefer for the job.

In the previous months, there has been a lull in the fight for the Speaker job after President Museveni directed both warring parties to ‘ceasefire’ as each side fired one salvo after another. 

Ms Kadaga, who is fighting to extend her 10-year grip on the coveted job, branded Mr Oulanyah a coward, accusing him of hiding when the issues of editing presidential age limits in the Constitution came up in 2017.    

“First of all, it started when I was out of the country, I was in America, then on my way back, I stopped in the UK. The Teso [Iteso] had invited me with their king [chief] to speak to [the Iteso] in the diaspora. While I was there, my deputy rang me, ‘come back since you know there is something which I can’t handle.’ I said ‘what do you mean you can’t handle?’  He said ‘no.  ...no… you come back.  I said I am doing some work here but he said ‘it is very urgent and I am not able to manage’. So I came. I came straight into the fire. For two weeks, he had failed to hold Parliament… he did not want to handle the age limit. He was waiting for me,” Ms Kadaga told a crowd of MPs as she was launched her campaigns in March.   

The open campaigns were upended when Mr Museveni, the chairperson of the NRM, directed that it will be the party’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) to decide who will carry the party’s flag for the Speaker and Deputy Speaker races.  

Winning a primary within the ruling NRM party more or less guarantees one victory when the elections come on the floor of Parliament since the NRM has an overwhelming majority in Parliament.  

Ms Kadaga and Mr Oulanyah are both bigwigs in NRM and this makes the decision of who will be the party’s flagbearer for the Speaker job more complicated. 

This was manifested last week when Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda wrote to Ms Kadaga asking her to postpone the election of Speaker from May 21 to a later date, insisting this will allow MPs to caucus in their political parties to harmonise their choice of their candidates for the two respective positions. 

Ms Jane Kibirige, the Clerk to Parliament, had on May 5, released the swearing-in programme of the MPs-elect of the 11th Parliament, indicating the ceremonies will take place from May 17 to May 20. Thereafter, the MPs were expected to convene on May 21 for the first sitting of Parliament to elect their Speaker and Deputy. But the NRM was not ready for that schedule, prompting the premier’s letter.    

It now seems Parliament has heeded Mr Rugunda’s plea and in a tweet, it said Ms Kibirige had confirmed the election of both the Speaker and Deputy Speaker will take place on May 24.   With that, the NRM on Monday will hold its much-awaited CEC at State House Entebbe in which the fight over the Speakership is likely to be resolved.  

“I haven’t seen the communication,” Mr Emmanuel Dombo, the NRM director of communication, explained when asked about the CEC meeting. 
“So I wouldn’t know the agenda to be considered, but I know CEC has a number of issues that are outstanding, including considering the guidelines for the elections of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker at the national level and local government level. I have received information that CEC will be sitting on Monday in Entebbe but whether the consideration of the Speaker’s position will be one of the issues to be discussed, is not yet known to me,” he said.

In this cold war between Ms Kadaga and Mr Oulanyah, the NRM’s CEC has been one of the flashpoints ever since Mr Museveni ruled that it will be the party organ to decide on who takes the day. 

When he appeared on NBS TV in March, Mr Oulanyah said it will be his party to decide but Ms Kadaga had a different take.  When put to her by Ruth Nankabirwa, the outgoing NRM chief whip, that it will be CEC to decide on the matter, Ms Kadaga, who has been in Parliament since 1996, rubbished the idea.

“I don’t think CEC has a right to bind a future Parliament before they are even elected. That is undemocratic, totally undemocratic. Stop talking about CEC here, we are talking about issues of the House…. Secondly, CEC last sat during the primaries, so stop issues of CEC,” Ms Kadaga said in March during a parliamentary session.  

Ms Nankabirwa, who won’t make it to the 11th Parliament since she was ousted from her Kiboga District Woman MP seat in the January elections, had gone back in time in 2016 when CEC intervened and stopped Mr Oulanyah from standing for Speaker. At the time, Ms Kadaga had said it was unfair for Mr Oulanyah to mount a challenge against her yet there was an unwritten rule within the NRM that the Speaker must be in that seat for 10 years. 

Ms Kadaga had cited Vice President Edward Ssekandi, who was Speaker from 2001 to 2011, as an example.  

“What I posted was a reminder of the CEC position of 2016 where CEC persuaded Mr Oulanyah to leave the position for the Ms Kadaga,” Ms Nankabirwa said before Ms Kadaga interjected, asking her whether she wants Parliament to invite the CEC members to confirm or deny her claims.
But Ms Kadaga’s attacks on CEC as undemocratic have not subsided. In April, a group of NRM MPs wrote a letter insisting that CEC cannot decide the issue because many of its members have not got a fresh mandate from NRM delegates. 

The thrust of their disagreement with CEC stems from the fact that last year, the NRM, citing coronavirus, didn’t stage a National Delegates Conference during which CEC leaders are elected.

Rather through a virtual conference, the NRM held elections for all Mr Museveni’s vice chairpersons of different regions and those can be enough to form quorum, according to legal experts who are familiar with NRM’s constitution. 

“Covid-19 couldn’t allow a physical meeting,” a lawyer who represents NRM but preferred anonymity, said. “But they do have quorum to decide.”
The decision not to hold a delegate’s conference meant that representatives for the youth, workers, women, veterans, PWDs, among others, didn’t get a fresh mandate from delegates, yet they seat on CEC, which is now going to decide the hotly contested race for the speakership.  

NRM’s CEC has more than 20 members but the party’s constitution says nine elected members of CEC can form quorum to decide a contentious matter, meaning Mr Museveni (National chairman), Mr Moses Kigongo (first vice chairperson), Ms Kadaga ( second vice-chairperson),  Singh Katongole (vice chairperson, Kampala, Mr Oulanyah ( Vice chairperson, Northern Uganda), Chris Baryomunsi (vice Chairperson, western Uganda)  Mike Mukula (vice chairperson, Eastern region ) Godfrey Kiwanda Suubi (vice chairperson, Buganda region) and Simon Peter Aleper (vice chairperson, Karamoja region), can decide on who will be Speaker and Deputy Speaker.
Mr Oulanyah’s surrogates have long intimated how the majority of the CEC is backing him and there was no need of panicking.

“We have been doing a lot of groundwork,” Mr Linos Ngompek, the Kibanda North MP-elect, who is one of the top Oulanyah mobilisers, said. “We know CEC is with us.”

In a bid to rationalise why NRM should back the outgoing Deputy Speaker and not Ms Kadaga, Mr Oulanyah’s camp point to the January elections as evidence.  

While the Opposition’s leading candidate Robert Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine, trounced Mr Museveni in Busoga Sub-region, which is Kadaga’s backyard, Mr Oulanyah is credited for helping the President defeat the Opposition not only in his native Acholi Sub-region but the entire northern region he leads in the NRM structure.    

“He moved in every district of the north and West Nile region. He moved to every radio station and he told the people the achievements of the government, which they had never known and he delivered the northern region. Without the vote of the north and West Nile region, the President wasn’t going to win. Why not reward him?  What has Kadaga done? She didn’t deliver the eastern region, not even Busoga,” Mr Yorke Alioni Odria, the MP-elect for Aringa South constituency, said. 

Balancing regional politics puts Mr Museveni in a tight spot.
Supporting Ms Kadaga means he would annoy the north where he has struggled in previous elections.  If he supports Mr Oulanyah, analysts believe Mr Museveni will lose more ground in Ms Kadaga’s Busoga.  

“It’s a very tricky position he is in,” Prof Sabiti Makara, a lecturer of Political Science and Public Administration at Makerere University, says. 
“Does he look at recovering in Busoga where he lost or he looks at concretising his votes in the north?” Prof Makara wonders. 

Ms Kadaga, tactically, has been trying to forge an alliance of NRM, the Opposition and Independent MPs, and her camp has since made it clear that if CEC chooses Mr Oulanyah, they would reject the results and front her on election day as an Independent.  

“We don’t care about CEC,” Iganga Municipality MP Peter Mugema, who is popularly known as Panadol, who bounced back to Parliament as an Independent having been in Parliament for the last 10 years on an NRM ticket, said. 

“If they don’t choose Ms Kadaga, she will come as the people’s Speaker. We shall vote for her. There is no doubt about that,” he said. 
Ms Kadaga, sources say, if she is not selected by the CEC, might cause a rebellion within the NRM but others believe nobody can go against Mr Museveni’s decision.

“There is a lot of fear within the NRM,” Mr Martin Ojara Mapenduzi, who won the newly constituted Gulu West Division as an Independent but now supports Mr Oulanyah, said.” This battle for speakership might cause problems for them internally,” he opines.

In April, when he was closing the NRM retreat of debutant MPs, Mr Museveni left a smile on the faces of Mr Oulanyah’s supporters when he referred to the former UPC man, 56, as the “bridge between the young and the old generation” to which Mr Museveni belongs.   
Whether Mr Museveni trusts this “bridge” to lead Parliament for the next five years remains to be seen.

Kadaga's Strategy...The gender card
Before the campaigns were called, Ms Kadaga had played the gender card, insisting that she is the only woman in the power structure since the President, Vice President, Chief Justice, Deputy Chief Justice and the Prime Minister are all male.  

But this might not play in her favour, since it is not clear how Mr Museveni will constitute his next Cabinet. 
“What if the next Vice President is female?” Prof Sabiti Makara, a lecturer of Political Science and Public Administration at Makerere University, wonders.

What some of the key players say...

Yorke Alioni Odria, Aringa South MP: Without the vote of the north and West Nile region, the President wasn’t going to win. Why not reward him [Oulanyah?  What has Kadaga done? 

Sabiti Makara, Political Science don: It is a very tricky position he [President Museveni] is in. Does he look at recovering in Busoga where he lost or he looks at concretising his votes in the north?”

Peter Mugema, Iganga Mun MP: We don’t care about CEC. If they don’t choose Ms Kadaga, she will come as the people’s Speaker. We shall vote for her. There is no doubt about that.”

Martin Ojara Mapenduzi, Gulu West Division MP: There is a lot of fear within the NRM. This battle for speakership might cause problems for them internally.

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