Politics: What does Buganda stand for?

When Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere clocked 90 years two Fridays ago, doyens of Opposition politics in Uganda such as Dr Kizza Besigye were quick to pay homage. Dr Besigye, who assumed the mantle as Uganda’s Opposition leader from Mr Ssemogerere in 2001, described the two-time presidential candidate as “an icon of the principled pursuit of a democratic transition.”

A day later, Dr Besigye was eulogising another Opposition politician on his birthday. Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu—who goes by the moniker Bobi Wine—was celebrating his 40th birthday, and Dr Besigye saw great significance in the ascent to the proverbial fourth floor.

Sub-tweeting the National Unity Platform (NUP) party leader, Dr Besigye said: “Very significant indeed: Children of Israel spent 40 yrs (Sic) in the wilderness; let’s watch the space! A Happy Birthday and many returns!”

Observers say the five decades that separate Mr Ssemogerere and Mr Kyagulanyi are representative of the paradigm shift in Ugandan politics.

While the former was the very embodiment of civility during his heyday, the politics of the latter have for the most part been uncivil.

Whereas Mr Kyagulanyi gave President Museveni a more fierce challenge at the presidential ballot in 2021 than Mr Ssemogerere did in 1996, it is feared that a gradual tapering could take centre-stage as 2026 comes within eyeshot.

Mr Kyagulanyi polled 35 percent against Mr Museveni’s 58 percent in the 2021 presidential poll.

While NUP insists this is not an actual reflection of how the election panned out, Mr Kyagulanyi’s polling was markedly better than what Mr Ssemogerere mustered in 1996 (23 percent against Mr Museveni’s 74 percent).

Back in 1996, Mr Ssemogerere’s crack at the presidency was warmly received in the northern and some eastern parts of Uganda.

Insurgencies in those parts of Uganda were responsible for Mr Museveni’s poor polling.

Three Northern Uganda Social Action Fund (Nusaf) projects later, Mr Museveni polled more than favourably in northern Uganda.

While Mr Ssemogerere did not throw his hat again in the political ring after the 1996 poll, Mr Besigye, who was Opposition leader in 2001, polled well in vast swathes of the north and east.

In fact, it took Mr Museveni quite some time to learn how to crack the code in—specifically—northern Uganda.

Same script, different cast

Now observers say he is trying to use the same template after his National Resistance Movement (NRM) party lost its rural Buganda bastions to NUP at the ballot in 2021.

Although it has been largely rejected in urban Buganda, the NRM had always made up for those losses in rural Buganda precincts.

In 2021, NUP’s so-called ‘red wave’ swept across strangleholds—including Luweero District, which Mr Museveni has frequently christened “NRM’s Mecca”.

All four constituencies that makeup Luweero—including the Woman MP seat—were won by NUP candidates in a sweep that left the NRM soul-searching.

Already, locals from Buganda Sub-region are being inundated with funds from the presidential initiative on job and wealth creation (Emyooga) at the behest of NUP legislators.

The carrot approach also recently succeeded in getting 56 of NUP’s 85 councillors in Wakiso District to attend a leadership training in Entebbe convened by Mr Museveni.

Uganda’s head of State also could not resist basking in the glory of having in his company a group of 91 youth (the so-called Kikankane) formerly allied to NUP.

“I took them through an NRM ideological lecture and disabused them of violence and destruction. If we work and there is looting and riots, how shall we develop?” Mr Museveni asked.

He added: “I am happy that they have seen the light. They now have the right spectacles and speak the language of patriotism, pan Africanism, and social-economic transformation. The NRM from the onset has been emphasising the prosperity for all Ugandans without segregation or destruction.”

Mr Museveni’s reference to “violence and destruction” was a tacit repudiation of Mr Kyagulanyi’s abrasive style.

The style departs with what Mr Ssemogerere stood for before he retired from elective politics at the turn of the second millennium.

Lauding the style during his 90th birthday, Gen Mugisha Muntu, the founder and current president of Alliance for National Transformation (ANT) party, said it helped Mr Ssemogerere not to get “drunk with power.”

When Mr Ssemogerere’s Democratic Party (50 seats) controversially lost at the hands of Apollo Milton Obote’s Uganda Peoples Congress (75 seats), it was Mr Museveni (fresh from watching his Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM) win only one of the 126 seats up for grabs) who took up arms to protest.

“We thought we had a special role to promote reconciliation and national unity at that very difficult period in our history,” Mr Ssemogerere said in a 2014 interview with this newspaper.

He added: “We thought that was better for the country. When I look back now, it was the right decision. But I didn’t take it alone. It was a collective decision.”

Minority psychology

Mr Ssemogerere still adopted a civil tone even after it became apparent that the power of incumbency and material considerations heavily influenced the outcome of the 1996 poll.

Buganda Sub-region turned its back on Mr Ssemogerere back then, with anecdotal evidence suggesting that material considerations and a link with Obote delivered the fatal blow.

If lightning strikes twice, in 2026, thanks to Emyooga and more, a simple yet perilous question will be posed: what does Buganda stand for? It’s a question that has also vexed Ivy League-trained scholars.

“It is unfortunate that the majority group in Uganda has minority psychology. The Baganda have the potential to lead, but it seems as though they’re unwilling,” Prof Mahmood Mamdani said at the 2008 Ttabamiruka (Buganda conference).

Delivering a keynote address during the third annual Abu Mayanja Memorial Lecture at Serena Conference Hall in Kampala, Prof Mamdani couldn’t help but wonder—albeit rhetorically—why “the largest ethnic group in Uganda … behave[s] like an imperilled minority … when it comes to politics.”

He added: “The reasons for this psychology are historical, not biological. They have to do with relations between Buganda and the central government during the post-independence period. Whenever post-independence governments have faltered in building majority support around implementing a positive programme for social change, the tendency has been to demonise a minority as a national threat against which to scare the majority into silent submission.”

What Prof Mamdani was alluding to was that although it was Mr Ssemogerere’s spoils that were stolen at the ballot in 1980, it was Mr Museveni who waged a civil war against Obote’s government, moreover using Buganda as a sanctuary.

When Mr Museveni’s National Resistance Army (NRA) marched onto the streets of Kampala in 1986, Mr Ssemogerere was conscripted and appointed as interior minister in what was christened as a “broad-based government.” This further entrenched the notion that Baganda can’t lead Uganda.

Before that, the notion that Buganda doesn’t back its own was entrenched in 1961 when a group of Anglicans in the Mengo establishment formed a political party called Kabaka Yekka (KY).

The entity’s objective was to unite the Baganda behind the throne—the symbol and guarantee of Buganda’s separate identity. Kabaka Yekka’s rival—Benedicto Kiwanuka—happened to be a Muganda, who was among the founders of the Democratic Party (DP).

Kabaka Yekka reincarnation?

In his book Contesting Catholics: Benedicto Kiwanuka and the Birth of Postcolonial Uganda, Jonathon L Earle says Uganda’s first prime minister sought to create a nationalist movement that would expand political participation, advocate for social justice, and challenge Uganda’s entrenched socio-political hierarchies.

Whilst the Buganda Kingdom boycotted the 1961 pre-colonial elections, fearing that national independence would challenge their kingdom’s regional autonomy, Democratic Party’s (DP’s) participation saw it secure control of the government.

This status quo remained until 1962 when KY formed an alliance with the Obote-led UPC, whose membership was superficially Anglican and its power base resided mostly outside of Buganda.

The idea behind the UPC and KY alliance was to ensure Kiwanuka and DP did not maintain power after the 1961 elections.

Earle writes: “In the parliamentary election of April 1962, the UPC and KY coalition secured control of the government. The arrangement was electorally partitioned: UPC stood for all of the seats outside of Buganda; KY for those exclusively in Buganda. Benedicto Kiwanuka and DP vacated their short-lived tenure following the electoral defeat.

“Uganda’s government would be controlled by a coalition government between UPC, led by the northern, republican statesman Milton Obote, and KY, whose membership backed the southern, monarchical presidency of Sir Edward Muteesa II, the king of Buganda and first president of Uganda. The UPC/KY alliance was short-lived; it disbanded by August 1964.”

The disbandment came after Edward Muteesa—the Kabaka of Buganda, who also doubled as Uganda’s President, albeit with no executive powers—attempted to precipitate an internal revolt in UPC through Grace Ibingira.

The attempt was unsuccessful and two years later, Muteesa was forced into exile. A few political commentators have drawn parallels between KY and NUP insofar as trying to ride on Buganda support is concerned.

Before serving his birthday cake, Mr Ssemogerere talked about the “temptation” that Ugandan leaders have to “cling onto power.” He also decried the decision to remove constitutional provisions that the Constituent Assembly proffered and consequently assuming “arbitrary powers.”

On his part, Mr Kyagulanyi marked his birthday by tweeting thus: “My father was 40 years old when he had me and 40 years later, here I am at 40 with 4 lovely children. I was 4 when our country was taken over and now I am 40. What’s with the number ‘4’ and me? They say life begins at 40, so let’s toast to life.”

So, as life begins for Mr Kyagulanyi and Mr Ssemogerere rages against the dying of the light on the ninth floor, that age-old question remains: what does Buganda stand for (and what does that mean for the rest of the country?).

Buganda politicians: Cheaper by the dozen?

By Monitor Reporter

When Beti Kamya joined seven other candidates in contesting for Uganda’s top job during the 2011 presidential polls, she made federalism the centre-piece of her electioneering.

Federalism is one of those pet subjects that has retained a dark grip on the Buganda Sub-region.

Yasin Olum, an associate professor at Makerere University’s School of Social Sciences, has written extensively about this system of government.

He came to the conclusion that in Uganda, “the conventional meaning of federalism” has been conflated with “monarchism to create a hybrid, indigenous concept.”

In Buganda Sub-region, that concept is affectionately referred to as “federo”.

On the campaign trail back in 2011, Ms Kamya was at pains to make an important distinction.

Federalism is not monarchism, she said during her whistle-stop tour of Uganda. It is—she corrected—essentially devolution of power, and could very well address ills brought on by centralisation of power such as patronage. The message did not quite resonate with Ugandans. Ms Kamya polled 52,782 votes to finish with a measly 0.66 percent.

While she took great delight in finishing ahead of Dr Abed Bwanika (51,708 votes or 0.65 percent), the old hand that is Jaberi Bidandi Ssali (34,688 votes or 0.44 percent) and upstart Samuel Lubega (32,726 votes or 0.41 percent), telltale signs could not be ignored.

If Ms Kamya was kicking all the doors and seeing which fell off their hinges, then she came to realise that the subject of federalism in Uganda is largely seen through ‘Ganda’ rose-coloured spectacles.

In fact, a year later in 2012, Prof Olum’s study affirmed an appetite for federalism in Buganda Sub-region (Kayunga—100 percent; Masaka—80 percent; Kampala—60 percent). It also found a wary exasperation elsewhere (the oil-rich Hoima—20 percent; Jinja—40 percent; Arua—45 percent). Despite this—or in fact because of it—voters hailing from both the rural and urban precincts of Buganda Sub-region did not rally behind Ms Kamya during the 2011 presidential poll.

Lost in translation?

Could it be that the seasoned politician did not articulate her message well? Or maybe she erred in choosing a complex, touchy subject to frame her campaign’s message?

In his 2012 study, Prof Olum concluded that “the subject of federalism in Uganda remains an on-going issue because of contestations over its meaning, as well as its adoption and the various challenges that could inhibit its implementation.” Little wonder, that same year—in February 2012—Buganda kingdom labelled Ms Kamya’s push to hold a plebiscite on federalism as “dangerous.”

Current Katikkiro (prime minister) Charles Peter Mayiga, then serving in the capacity of kingdom spokesperson, told The Observer thus: “To introduce federalism, you must look at the chapter in the Constitution that deals with the local government and that is Chapter 11 that starts with Article 176 to 178. Those are the provisions that need to be amended, not Article 74 as she states.”

Five years after the federalism door fell off its hinges, Ms Kamya left the Opposition to join the ruling NRM government.

In a 2021 interview with NTV Uganda, she said she entered politics “to be in government so that I participate in decision-making, in policy formulation, in budgeting.”

About the ‘surprise’ defection, she reasoned that she was left with little choice since “NRM is going to be in government for a long time.”

The Uganda Federal Alliance founder then rubbed salt in the wound by adding that she has achieved more during her short stint in NRM than she ever did several years in the trenches with the Opposition.

Ms Kamya was the second woman to run for the presidency of Uganda.

Ms Miria Obote had the first crack during the 2006 polls.

Born and bred in Kampala, Ms Obote—who dropped her maiden name, Kalule, after marrying the second president of Uganda, Apollo Milton Obote—brought up the rear after polling 57,071 votes (0.82 percent).

Despite being a man of immense political and financial resources, John Ssebaana Kizito finished a distant third in that 2006 race after polling 109,583 votes. This was also the first of three unsuccessful attempts Dr Abed Bwanika would have at the top job in Uganda. In so doing, he eclipsed Kibirige Mayanja, whose attempts in 1996 and 2001 to rally a bloc vote from Buganda and more failed spectacularly.

Baganda politicians in presidential polls

Candidate: Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere

Poll year: 1996

Votes: 1,416,139

Candidate: Kibirige Mayanja

Poll years: 1996 & 2001

Votes: 123,290; 73,790

Candidate: John Ssebaana Kizito

Poll year: 2006

Votes: 109,583

Candidate: Dr Abed Bwanika

Poll years: 2006, 2011 & 2016

Votes: 65,874; 51,708; 89,005

Candidate: Miria Obote

Poll year: 2006

Votes: 57,071

Candidate: Beti Kamya 

Poll year: 2011

Votes: 52,782

Candidate: Jaberi Bidandi Ssali 

Poll year: 2011

Votes: 34,688

Candidate: Samuel Lubega 

Poll year: 2011

Votes: 32,726

Candidate: Joseph Mabirizi

Poll year: 2016

Votes: 24,498

Candidate: John Katumba

Poll year: 2021

Votes: 37,554

Candidate: Willy Mayambala

Poll year: 2021

Votes: 15,014

Candidate: Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, alias Bobi Wine

Poll year: 2021

Votes: 3,631,437