Uganda on the Eve of 50: the Legitimacy Challenge Aid, Autocrats, Plunder and an Independence-Era Jinx
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AFRICA INSTITUTE OF SOUTH AFRICA BriefinG NO 50 MAY 2011 Uganda on the Eve of 50: The Legitimacy Challenge Aid, autocrats, plunder and an independence-era jinx Badru Dean Mulumba On the eve of turning 50 after independence, Uganda still faces the legitimacy challenge that dogged many African countries at independence, as ruling parties used state institutions to buy elections and the opposition, or to outlaw or jail competitors. Voter apathy in Uganda is growing, as elections become a façade which hides rural poverty. The country’s international aid partners were complicit in planting autocracy. Neither existing civil society nor the opposition will by themselves initiate change; but they might help to pull the country from the brink if they act in concert with external actors and progressives within the ruling party. The path to credible democratic reform runs through massive aid cuts pending reform of electoral and public finance laws that, through classified budgets, allow a president to personalise the country’s finances. However, that window is fast closing as the country starts to pump oil, making donors irrelevant. Introduction: The big swindle – state media – often the only media available how Uganda conned democracy – and thus owned the national narrative; they expropriated the treasury, which is why their At independence, the central challenge for faces were imprinted on national currencies. They Africa was sustaining state legitimacy amidst bought what they could; they stole what they autocratic rule. Elections, when they occurred, could not. Pandemonium, a direct consequence rarely conferred legitimacy. Africa’s leaders, of the ensuing absolute power, gatecrashed the enthralled by power, made their primary objective party, forcing countries to reluctantly implement the manipulation of state institutions to silence some form of liberal democracy – because opponents. The leaders treated country’s armies absolute power, though sweet, had proved a threat as their own private militia; they personalised to long-term political careers, as it ushered in Badru Dean Mulumba has more than a decade of experience as a journalist in Eastern Africa, published largely by the Nation Media Group. Recently, he has worked as an editor, researcher and consultant in the Sudan Science and Technology at the Africa Institute of South Africa, Pretoria © Africa Institute of South Africa AISA POLICYbrief Number 50 – May 2011 1 violent coups. Later, the democratic wave across The use of state structures by the Uganda Eastern Europe and the demise of communism People’s Congress of Obote to rig the 1980 election robbed Africa’s autocrats of the crucial advantage gave rebels the excuse to resort to violence. Only of playing off one super-power against another. one rebel group, led by Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, Uganda, independent from Britain on 9 had a coherent ideology: to dismantle a lopsided October, 1962, learnt this lesson. Fifty years on, socio-economic and political structure bequeathed state legitimacy remains a central problem for to the country by colonial leaders.5 (That structure the country. The country’s rulers, just like the had stratified ethnic groups into labourers, white- independence rulers before them, are enamoured collar staff or the military. For instance, the of power. Uganda spent two decades justifying a Bantu-speaking Buganda were elevated above 1986 ban on political parties, using the spurious other tribes: the independence government was argument that parties, not the politicians subservient to Buganda’s local government. The manipulating them, were the bane of Africa. colonial masters had also made military power a Uganda’s leaders said parties were for industrial preserve of the Luo.6) societies. The international aid partners played According to Colin Legum, a pre-eminent along and pretended that what Uganda christened journalist of that era, between 1983 and 1984 a ‘no-party’ political system differed from a single- government forces had beaten Museveni’s rebels party system. to the periphery. In-fighting within the army led That phase under a ‘no-party’ system, the to the ousting of Obote (a Luo of Langi origin) by biggest confidence trick in Uganda’s post- Acholi military officers and his subsequent exile independence history, gave politicians cover as to Zambia. The military junta invited rebels to they laid the foundation that is circumventing talks in Nairobi, while also allowing them into democracy years later. For example, the the country’s capital.7 Instead, the rebels used government dismantled farmer cooperative the ruse of peace talks to rearm and recruit for societies, selling off to cronies assets built over the final assault. In addition, the new Bantu- decades. Consequently, influential grass-roots dominated army subjected the Acholi to terror, farmer organisations are now absent from this at one point locking people up in railway wagons agricultural country. The government called and torching them.8 cooperative societies an unnecessary intermediary The Bantu-speaking rebels took power in which denied farmers higher earnings. However, January 1986, putting peace and stability ahead cooperative societies offered market security, of competitive politics. They suspended political transport and farm implements and owned a parties.9 They gave a sprinkling of hand-picked national bank that offered agricultural loans. In opposition figures government posts. Uganda fact, the failure of earnings to keep pace with the called this a ‘no-party democracy’. Donors, rising cost of living targeted the rural populace. disingenuously praising this as a novel system of An impoverished population is too willing to sell democracy, ignored the widespread yearning of its ballot. A government not bound by effective the populace for freedom. checks has no qualms about dipping its hand in Yet this approach did not confer legitimacy the state treasury to buy that vote. The Ugandan to government. For, despite peace returning to state today exists to serve the rulers. The the south, as opposition parties with bases in legitimacy challenge has come full circle. the centre and south-based rebel factions joined At the turn of the 1980s, Uganda’s leaders government, successive civil wars broke out gave competitive politics preference over peace in the hitherto peaceful north. During the first and stability.1 Tanzanian troops in April 1979 10 years of Museveni’s reign, the north was as overthrew the bloodthirsty dictatorship of Idi chaotic as the centre had been in the early 1980s, Amin, who had ruled from January 1971 and if not more so. Just as in the early 1980s, when later died in exile in Saudi Arabia in 2003. Yet the the Bantu-speakers were angry the Luo were competitive politics that followed Amin’s ousting disenfranchised. The north had been the power did not bring peace and stability. Apolo Milton base for Milton Obote. Besides, the overthrown Obote, Uganda’s charismatic independence leader,2 military forces felt cheated. ruling a second time from 1981 to 1985, failed In addition, the ban on political parties for to control the military. The army consequently two decades from 1986 had far-reaching effects. maimed and murdered at will.3 The country spent One was that the country missed the planting from 1981 to 1986 trying to recover from Amin’s of democratic seeds at a critical stage. The 1986 economic mess,4 while fighting rebellions. government (just like that of 1962, headed by a prime minister in his thirties) had effervescent 2 AISA POLICYbrief Number 50 – May 2011 © Africa Institute of South Africa leaders, many in their twenties and thirties, base it was always going to be easy for Uganda to brimming with ideas.10 Yet the new leaders register impressive growth.14 invested that intelligence in machinations to Secondly, the Museveni administration was keep parties out of power, rather than to lay the aid driven. Donors financed more than half the foundation for a functioning liberal democracy. By country’s budget.15 By the time of the Highly 2005, when political parties were freed and rules Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC), 80 for liberal politics laid down, power had corrupted per cent of Uganda’s US$4, 4 billion debt had the now ex-idealists; they were now less inclined been accumulated by this administration alone. to enact rules for posterity than plan to retain The HIPC for Uganda was hurried, apparently to power themselves.11 prevent bankruptcy and exposure of the spin upon which Uganda’s stellar growth narrative hinged. Driving democracy from outside Thirdly, the Ugandan leader had long n contrast to Kenya in 1992, for instance, internal mastered the geopolitical game, often making pressures played little part in Uganda’s return himself indispensable to donors. Once asked, to multiparty politics. That foreign, rather than soon after he ascended power, whether he was internal, pressure drove these democratic reforms pro-West or pro-East, the astute Museveni, was a consequence of both the shackling of parties perhaps for fear of making enemies with either for two decades and the mutilation of grass-roots political bloc, had replied he was pro-himself. independent economic empowerment grouping. That realism has at once defined and undergirded The bloody 2001 election exposed Uganda’s Museveni’s longevity in power. A keen sense of duplicitous regime. Donors, to save face, asked shifting global fortunes has allowed Museveni Museveni to retire. US Secretary of State Colin to manipulate major powers and donor naivety, Powell, making that call during a visit to Uganda with eventual success. As soon as his communist in May 2001, was the most forceful and among puppet masters in the Eastern Bloc started to the first to do so.12 However, donor calls were half- fester and crumble at the turn of the 1990s, a hearted, if effective. Unlike the donors who pulled hitherto communist-leaning Museveni overnight the plug on foreign assistance in Kenya in 1991,13 transformed himself into a puppet for the liberal these donors hesitated to walk that talk.