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ABSTRACT
Following Uganda’s 2005 multiparty transition, observers expected the country’s legislature – an unusually assertive body by regional standards – to lose its bite, muzzled due to newly re-instated party disciplinary measures. This article explains why – contrary to these expectations – executive-legislative tensions persist and, more fundamentally, what this tells us about the nature of one-party and executive dominance in Uganda. Inspired by a comparative politics literature on parties as well as an older generation of Africanist scholarship, the analysis centres on the nexus linking political finance, party-building and legislative independence. The article argues that the legacy of Uganda’s ‘no-party’ Movement system endures, perpetuated through the highly personalized and contentious nature of electoral mobilization. By failing to recentralize control of campaign finance, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) leadership has left parliamentary candidates largely to their own devices while undermining its own nascent efforts to ensure greater party institutionalization. The consequence of this failure to institutionalize the ruling party plays out in a more assertive legislature, where NRM MPs – who form the overwhelming majority – frequently rebel against the party line. Unable to enforce partisan discipline, Museveni is compelled to buy back legislators’ support through executive patronage. While he generally succeeds in subduing Parliament, especially towards the end of a legislative term, this success is by no means automatic. As such, the Ugandan legislature is best understood as an arena for intra-elite bargaining, its independence contingent on the push-and-pull between President Museveni and unruly NRM MPs.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Accessed 28 November 2016: http://www.observer.ug/news-headlines/44305-how-gen-museveni-tamed-mps-on-oulanyah.
2. Barkan, Legislative Power in Emerging African Democracies.
3. van de Walle, “Presidentialism and Clientelism,” 309; Mozaffar and Scarrit, “The Puzzle of African Party Systems.”
4. Doorenspleet and Nijzink, One-Party Dominance; Nijzink et al., “Parliaments and the Enhancement of Democracy.”
5. Carbone, “‘Populism’ visits Africa,” 13.
6. Tangri and Mwenda, The Politics of Elite Corruption, 67; Tripp, Museveni’s Uganda; Makara, Rakners and Svasand, “Turnaround”; Oloka-Onyango, “New Wine in New Bottles?”; Kasfir, “‘Movement’ Democracy in Uganda”; Rubongoya, Regime Hegemony in Museveni’s Uganda.
7. See especially Barkan, Legislative Power in Emerging African Democracies; Cited in Nijink et al., “Parliaments and the Enhancement of Democracy.”
8. Carbone, No-Party Democracy?; Kasfir and Twebaze, “Uganda’s No-Party Parliament.”
9. Ibid; Rubongoya, Regime Hegemony in Museveni’s Uganda.
10. Cited in Carbon, “‘Populism’ Visits Africa,” 9; cited in Kasfir and Twebaze, “Uganda’s No-Party Parliament,” 104.
11. For instance, Tanzania’s Chama Cha Mapinduzi, Namibia’s South West Africa People's Organization or Botswana’s Botswana Democratic Party.
12. Carbone, “‘Populism’ Visits Africa”; Oloka-Onyango, “New Wine in New Bottles?”; Kasfir, “‘Movement’ Democracy in Uganda,” 67–8.
13. Makara, Rakner, and Svasand, “Turnaround,” 193–4. Emphasis added.
14. Tripp, Museveni’s Uganda, 113.
15. Cited in Kiiza, Svasand, and Tabora, “Organising Parties,” 227.
16. Izama and Wilkerson, “Museveni’s Triumph and Weaknesses.”
17. Panebianco, Political Parties, xii.
18. Michels, Political Parties, highlights this point through a comparison of European socialist parties at the turn of the twentieth century.
19. Okumu and Holmquist, “Party and Party System Relations.”; Baylies and Szeftel, “The Zambian Business Class”; Hyden and Leys, “Elections and Politics in Single-Party Systems.”
20. Carbone, No-Party Democracy?, 149–52.
21. Carbone, No-Party Democracy?, 138 and 150.
22. Vokes and Wilkins, “Party, Patronage and Coercion in the NRM’s 2016 re-election in Uganda.”
23. The Alliance for Campaign Finance Monitoring (ACFIM) final report on the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections notes that, ‘The NRM primary elections for MP flagbearers for 2016 turned out to be the most expensive for contestants in the history of the party’ (13).
24. The Electoral Commission, “List of Nominated Candidates for 2016 General Elections,” accessed 25 November 2016: http://www.ec.or.ug/?q=info/list-nominated-candidates.
25. Accessed 25 November 2016: http://data.worldbank.org/country/uganda.
26. Interview 1, NRM MP.
27. Interview 2, NRM MP (Byarugaba).
28. Accessed 28 November 2016: http://africanarguments.org/2015/06/29/family-therapy-dynasty-and-change-in-uganda-by-angelo-izama/.
29. Cited in Oloka-Onyango, “New Wine in New Bottles?,” 59.
30. Tangri and Mwenda, The Politics of Elite Corruption, especially chapter 8. See also: Accessed 25 November 2016: http://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1230439/kutesa-ssekikubo-divide-sembabule; Accessed 25 November 2016: http://www.observer.ug/special-editions/40127-kadaga-mbabazi-is-targeting-me.
31. Carbone, No-Party Democracy?, 141–2.
32. Interview 3, NRM MP.
33. Tangri and Mwenda, The Politics of Elite Corruption, 116.
34. ACFIM, “Extended Study on Campaign Financing.”
35. Recurrent theme in interviews with NRM MPs.
36. Tangri and Mwenda, The Politics of Elite Corruption, on embezzlement of NRM funds in the 2001–2011 elections (115). ACFIM, “Extended Study on Campaign Finance.” Accessed 25 November 2016: http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/NRM-probes-party-officials-over-stolen-campaign/-/688334/3127560/-/8wlk2hz/-/index.html.
37. Accessed 25 November 2016: http://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1428752/todays-vision-nrm-campaign-money-kazibwes-au-bid; Accessed 25 November 2016: http://www.observer.ug/news-headlines/45280-nrm-officials-miss-salaries-for-3-months.
38. Rahat and Hazan, “Candidate Selection Methods”; Masket, No Middle Ground.
39. Kent, The Great Game of Politics, 11.
40. I use Huntington’s criteria of complexity and coherence and leave aside his reference to adaptability – which by his definition is less relevant in this context – and autonomy, which I see more as a cause rather than an effect or indicator of party institutionalization.
41. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, 18.
42. “Constitution of the NRM,” as adopted 22 May 2003.
43. Accessed 25 November 2016: http://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1243431/nrm-leaders-constitution-review.
44. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, 22.
45. Ibid, 21.
46. Accessed 25 November 2016: http://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1281546/nrm-vows-eliminate-independents.
47. Accessed 15 June 2016: http://www.observer.ug/news-headlines/41369-museveni-now-backs-nrm-independents.
48. See, “Final report of the NRM parliamentary caucus select committee on NRM primary selections,” July 2014. This report was only compiled after MPs – frustrated by the NRM Secretariat’s failure to probe irregularities in the party primaries – insisted that President Museveni allow them to investigate.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid.
53. Ibid.
54. Michels, Political Parties; Masket, No Middle Ground.
55. Barkan, Legislative Power in Emerging African Democracies. Note that this contrasts with Barkan’s earlier research, which was more sensitive to the analytical approach adopted here.
56. This focus on pervasive ‘neopatrimonialism’ reflects a general trend in the Africanist literature of the 1990s and 2000.
57. Barkan and Okumu, “Linkage Without Parties”; Gertzel, The Politics of Independent Kenya, esp. Chapter 5; Kjekshush, “Parliament in a One-Party State.” Recent doctoral theses also refer to this literature: Cheeseman, “Civil-authoritarianism in Africa”; Opalo, “Institutions and Political Change.”
58. Ibid.
59. Kasfir and Twebaze, “Uganda’s No-Party Parliament”; Carbone, No-Party Democracy?
60. Ibid.
61. Private members’ bills are a barometer of the executive’s ability to monopolize the legislative agenda, although the executive may occasionally orchestrate the introduction of a Private Members’ Bill for strategic reasons as appeared to be true, for instance, of NRM MP Ssekitoleko’s constitutional amendment bill. Accessed 12 September 2016: http://www.observer.ug/news-headlines/46398-unmasking-kafeero-ssekitooleko.
62. Kasfir and Twebaze, “Performance and Efficacy.”
63. Ibid.
64. Tangri and Mwenda, The Politics of Elite Corruption.
65. Interview 4, NRM MP.
66. Interview 5, NRM MP.
67. Interview 6, Official in OGCW.
68. Interview 6, OGCW.
69. Interview 7, NRM MP.
70. Interview 8, NRM MP.
71. Interview 9, NRM MP.
72. Hansard, NRM MP, 13 September 2012.
73. Ibid.
74. Ibid.
75. Ibid.
76. Accessed 28 November 2016: http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Museveni-storms-out-of-meeting/688334-1511336-u3i90hz/index.html.
77. Ibid, 18 September 2012.
78. Ibid.
79. Ibid.
80. Accessed 25 November 2016: http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Legislators-loans-as-swearing-in-enters-/-/688334/3207688/-/qsyn1xz/-/index.html.
81. Accessed 15 June 2016: http://www.observer.ug/news-headlines/37701-heavy-debt-mps-named; This issue was raised by several interviewees.
82. Accessed 15 June 2016: http://www.observer.ug/component/content/article?id=24180:president-says-only-50-mps-can-sustain-themselves.
83. Interview 10, NRM MP.
84. Accessed 15 June 2016: http://www.observer.ug/news-headlines/33244--state-of-emergency-as-mps-get-bailed-out-.
85. Interview 6, OGCW.
86. Ibid.
87. Ibid.
88. Ibid.
89. Additional Supplementary Budgets were passed just prior to the 2016 elections: ACFIM, “Extended Study,” Chapter 11.
90. Accessed 15 June 2016: http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/URA-lose-MPs-tax-exemption/-/688334/3214448/-/3gjs33/-/index.html.
91. Accessed 15 June 2016: http://www.observer.ug/news-headlines/44338-how-oulanyah-survived-nrm-mps.