On May 27 2024, I wrote an article titled, How opposition helped tibuhaburwa museveni to build dynastic rule in uganda. The article was published in many media, including MUWADO, and circulated widely.  There were many responses to the article, which sought to generate a discussion on the way forward for multipartyism or pluralism in Uganda. 

Despite the many regular elections over the past 28 years of NRM rule, Uganda has been systematically experiencing de-democratisation, not democratisation. This is exemplified by the spreading and intensifying militarisation of everything conceivable. Not long ago I wrote another article The military capture uganda’s civic space, which was published by many media, including the Uganda Radio Network and Uganda Today. I showed that civic space in Uganda has systematically shrunk as the NRM Government hoodwinks Ugandans with election while taking over all civic spaces in the country. I stated that the military capture of Uganda’s Civic Space, combined with the revamping and spread of the grass culture all over the country is the most dangerous state facing Uganda today and tomorrow.

Therefore, although the impression being created that homosexuality is the most dangerous threat facing Uganda is diversionary. Military capture and the grass culture threated whole communities en masse whereas homosexuality targets individuals, but where traditional cultures are strong it has little chance of consummating whole communities and peoples.

In his article How the Army is Swallowing the Ugandan State Liam Taylor (2022) showed that when civilian institutions are systematically undermined by power, the military steps.

President Tibuhaburwa Museveni may be an elected President but he remains 100 per cent military in heart, mind and actions, and he is the champion of the de-democratisation and militarisation processes in Uganda. He takes full advantage of the fact that the Uganda Constitution 1995, whose making he presided over, invests all power and authority over everything – underground and above-ground – including power and authority. Power is concentrated  in the hands of the institution of the presidency, which he has captured for the past 38 years.

The only thing, which shows that Uganda does not entirely belong to the military are the guided regular elections, which President Tibuhaburwa Museveni and his party must win at all costs – including blood and iron. However, because of the emphasis of blood and iron in the elections, the elections are militarily guided and controlled.

Truly the rulers believe power flows only through the barrel of the gun and is civilised by elections, which mean little to the people, communities’ and society since all these are under military grip and control. Indeed, as Taylor and myself showed, the military has completely invaded and penetrated all civic spaces and institutions, ultimately making the civilian population subject to a formidable military machine.

The question is how did we come to this?

In this article I want to build on my previous article, How opposition helped Tibuhaburwa Museveni to build dynastic rule in Uganda. I will focus on the role of the Democratic Party (DP) in Uganda’s murky politics.  By murky I mean dark and gloomy. Therefore, our politics has been dark and gloomy. The assumption here is that DP has been at the centre of translating Uganda’s politics into a dark and gloomy mix. I will show how. Let me begin with today.

Today, the Democratic Party is at the forefront of helping President Tibuhaburwa Museveni to manipulate the Constitution of Uganda 1995, whose making he presided over and promised that it would stand the test of time. Over the past 29 years he has reduced the accountability controls over the age limit of a president and the presidential term limits to enable himself to rule Uganda like a president for life. He has used the NRM majority in the parliament of Uganda to achieve this feat that ensures there is no alternative to him in terms leadership and governance of Uganda. Now how is he using the DP to ensure that there is no threat to his grip on gpower and political domination of Uganda by his family?

Simple. The president reached an agreement with the party leader of DP, the same way he did with the party leader of the Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) to cooperate with him and his party politically, which meant that he would not be contradicted by DP and UPC in his political choices. Dring this time when the whole country has raised its collective voice against corruption and the corrupt, the voices of DP and UPC – the oldest parties in Tibuhaburwa Museveni/NRM and the leaders of DP and UPC.

For UPC the president gave a ministerial post to the wife of its party  leader Jimmy Akena Obote. For DP the president gave the party leader Norbert Mao the influential ministry of justice and constitutional affairs.

Currently, President Tibuhaburwa Museveni wants to free himself from the voters of Uganda, who ostensibly have elected him since 1996 to the presidency of Uganda consistently and persistently. The person he has chosen to help him free himself is the party leader of DP. He has tasked him to initiate and see through constitutional changes before the 2026 general election that will institutionalise the election of the president the majority, which is President Tibuhaburwa Museveni’s party, in the Parliament of Uganda. 

Nobert Mao has cast himself as ready to carry out the task with no qualms of moving ahead, although he knows a change of law towards electing the president would de-franchise Ugandans. He knows that the majority in parliament, once elected no longer pride in representing the public interest or the interests of their constituents, but their own interests and, most important the interests of President of Uganda; principally power retention and hereditary politics.

If Nobert Mao succeeds in ensuring that constitutional means de-franchise Ugandans in the interest of power, it will be nothing but a continuation of the Democratic Party serving those who capture power or want to retain power at the expense of the genuine need of Ugandans for freedom, democracy, human rights, development and transformation of their circumstances and lives. Currently all these are in crisis.

There is wide spread perception among Ugandans that since independence these virtues have evaded them, mainly due to bad governance, militarism and the erosion of freedoms, democracy and various rights. Corruption has always confounded these pollutants of independence, sovereignty and development of country and people.

When President Tibuhaburwa Museveni captured the instruments of power through the barrel of the gun in 1986, many Ugandans, who in the past professed membership of the DP, were behind Legal Notice No.1 of 1986 even if they knew the capture of power largely involved former refugees and others with no cultural, historical and biological roots in Uganda. They did not stop there. They were behind the following:

• Movement Act
• Article 269 of 1995
• POMA; Public Order Management Act

Besides, I cannot fail to mention:

• The complicity of DP during the bush war in Luwero Triangle with one leg in Parliament and one leg in the bush.
• DP affiliated or leaned towards rebel groups in bush such as Uganda Freedom Movement (UFM), FEDEMU, Uganda Freedom Fighters (UFF) and later National Resistance Movement (NRM); not institutions promoting democracy but chaos that lays a fertile ground for dictatorship.
• DP lied and raged propaganda over 10th December 1980 elections that were rigged in favour of UPC.
• DP failed to follow up on any petitions.
• DP’s political elements, such as Andrew Benedicto Ademola, who was Uganda’s first black diplomat, conspired to effect and make effective the July 27, 1985 coup that ushered in the military Junta of the Okellos (i.e., Basilio Okello and Tito Okello)
• DP’s big wigs opted to serve the gun men in 1985 in the typical way they served Idi Amin in 1971 coup and later the NRM/A coup in 1986, thereby undermining building democracy through civic means.
• DP big wigs were fully involved in the 1985 Nairobi Peace Talks (which Ugandans called Nairobi Peace Jokes) that delivered a military pact between the military Junta of the Okellos with the NRM/A, thereby laying the ground for other political parties/forces being switched off completely.

For the most part politics or politicomilitarism, in which DP has been involved during most of its political history, has been to ensure that the UPC is marginalised or is deactivated from the body politic of Uganda and ever taking power again in Uganda. This is likely to undermine national-democratic liberation, which has been a core idea in the political manifestation of the UPC since the latter part of colonial rule in Uganda.

There fore DP has played a critical role in the murky politics. If Uganda has experienced constitutional decay, militarisation of anything conceivable, and de-democratisation, DP has unfortunately been integral to these processes, consciously or unconsciously.  

Currently, although there is seeming multipartyism or pluralism, the truism is that in practice we have no-party rule, because the ruling clique in Uganda has relapsed back to the period before 1996 when there was no real challenge to the National Resistance Movement (NRM) with its strong man Yoweri Museveni (previously Yoweri Kaguta Museveni now Yoweri Tibuhaburwa Museveni). There are political parties – including the old parties (DP, UPC), National Unity Platform (NUP), Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) and others -but just like in th past they cannot operate beyond certain limits set by the politicomilitary regime, just as was the case in the past. If they do they are pounced on by the military and police as desired by President Tibuhaburwa Museveni – today as in the past

The Ten Million Dollar Is: How will Ugandans through their political parties or outside them, free themselves from President Tibuhaburwa Museveni and his bush oriented NRM?

One thing seems to be true. Ugandans are neither leading nor governing themselves. People with roots and origins elsewhere are governing and leading them for interests that have nothing to do with Ugandans and their country. This is what military capture of a country means. All spaces of human manifestation in all spheres of life are taken by others and the owners of the country are compelled to live as internal refugees or slaves, or else exported out like commodities to energise the foreign economies through external slavery as in the past. Those in power will cast this as employment.

People such as Yoga Adhola would say Uganda needs a revolutionary situation to emerge for us to fully capture our country and the instruments of power back to ourselves and reroute the country from the wrong political line President Tibuhaburwa Museveni has set it on for his selfish interests of power and exploitation of resources. But when and how will that present itself?

For God and My Country

• A Tell report / By Prof Oweyegha-Afunaduula, a former professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences of the Makerere University, Uganda. Prof Owegha-Afunaduula is also a cofounder of Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis, Uganda