We need ‘big picture’ thinking in Uganda

One of the biggest contributions of the Democratic Party (DP) to nation building and the struggle for democracy is that we never lose sight of the bigger picture. I pray we don’t ever do. 
In 1961, DP as the party of government advocated for universal suffrage nationwide. This clashed with the entrenched feudal interests in Buganda. Ben Kiwanuka was treated like a leper. The vested interests at Mengo formed a special purpose vehicle and called it a political party - Kabaka Yekka. They coalesced with a complicit colonial power and resolved that in the 1962 elections the people of Buganda would have their MPs elected for them by the Lukiiko (parliament). KY MPs then formed a coalition with UPC of Milton Obote and they formed a government. That marriage of convenience soon collapsed in a heap for reasons that are well known.
In 1986, NRA stormed Kampala guns blazing. DP with the broadest social base joined the NRM government. That is the proper period from which to start my thesis of what our problem seems to be - namely the misguided and narrow definition of what an “opposition” is. When the NRM took over, the Opposition was UPC under its fiery assistant secretary, Cecilia Ogwal. Its base was Uganda House and the institutional framework it leaned on was the Presidential Policy Commission which was appointed by its exiled leader, former president Milton Obote.
The ‘Opposition’ was geographically positioned in the north and ethnically Nilotic. Government was geographically southern and ethnically Bantu. Many Ugandans, including those in the Bantu South, were sceptical of the new rebels turned ruling party but they were blinded by the sense of relief they got from the ousting of the ruling groups they viewed through ethnic lenses.
After 10 years of a stalled democratisation process, DP leader Paul Ssemogerere walked out of government and announced that he would run against Mr Museveni in the 1996 elections. Ever the big tent, big picture party, DP chose its old nemesis UPC as its partner. They formed the Inter-Political Forces Coalition (IPFC). The old foes became partners. Ssemogerere and Cecilia Ogwal traversed the country together.
Like Kiwanuka in the 1960s, Ssemogerere was demonised and turned into a leper. He was presented as a Trojan horse working for the return of Obote into power and as a front for the resurgence of ‘Nilotics from the north’. Ssemogerere swept the polls in Teso, West Nile, Acholi and Lango. The West and Buganda shunned him. The Bantu-Nilotic divide was clear in 1996. At that time ‘Opposition’ meant hating the “north”! No wonder in the Constituent Assembly the motion to institute federalism in Uganda was defeated because the so-called multipartists (many of whom were from the north) supported it.
In 2001, against the wishes of some of us, DP and Ssemogerere rallied around Kizza Besigye who challenged Museveni on a platform of reform. It was not foreseen that Besigye would form a political party.
Five years later Besigye returned from exile and launched the FDC. There were efforts for DP and FDC to form the nucleus of an electoral coalition dubbed the G6 but it came to nought. DP elected Ssebaana Kizito as president and he run for president. I was his national campaign director in the first multiparty elections under the 1995 Constitution. Many of the DP parliamentary and local government candidates in Buganda opportunistically shunned Ssebaana.
At that moment the meaning of Opposition changed. “Opposition” meant FDC and Besigye. A massive media smear campaign was launched by narrow-minded and selfish so-called pro change/anti-Museveni politician to present DP and Ssebaana as spoilers on Museveni’s payroll.
In 2010, I was elected DP president. Ssebaana had started talks with FDC about a possible electoral coalition in 2011 dubbed the Inter-Party Coalition (IPC). The talks were inconclusive. Ssebaana tasked the new leadership to decide whether to be part of IPC. When the new DP NEC met, it decided against joining the IPC.
With FDC having positioned itself as “the Opposition”, DP was once more demonised and smeared as a Museveni Trojan horse. FDC made an agreement with a DP clique opposed to the new DP leadership which they named Buganda Ssuubi 2011. These were leaders who run for Parliament under DP but supported Besigye for president. I was singled out for the most vitriolic hate campaign. Anybody not supporting Besigye was not considered Opposition. But we stood our ground. In Acholi Besigye came third. He won four districts nationwide, I won the three districts in the west of Acholi. The attacks from FDC combined with the clique within DP opposed to the NEC elected in Mbale became even more intense.
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