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Can Beti Kamya change Uganda this time round?

Saturday October 05 2013
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With campaigns already underway in all but name, President Museveni is far ahead of his challengers; only Olive Beti Kamya’s efforts to change the rules of the game could surprise him. TEA Graphic

President Yoweri Museveni has faced off against women thrice in his presidential career: Once in a military contest against Alice Lakwena, who in the late 1980s led the Holy Spirit Movement that later morphed into the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army; and more recently in electoral contests, first in 2006 against former first lady Miria Obote, and in 2011 against Olive Beti Kamya. Now he is once again facing a challenge to his hegemony led by a woman — Beti Kamya again.

In the shadow of the ongoing turmoil in the major parties, Ms Kamya, leader of the Uganda Federal Alliance, has for 10 months now been leading a quiet campaign to collect signatures for a people-driven referendum to change Uganda’s current constitutional dispensation, which she says is at the core of the instability that has dogged the country since Independence 50 years ago.

As she sees it, “The occupants of State House are merely a symptom,” and not that, like his predecessors, Museveni is just a product of a bad system, which, despite its current decentralised nature, still concentrates too much power in the person of the president.

“So even if you got rid of him, the next person will inherit it. It would not make a difference if Beti Kamya were the occupant of State House today because the system gives the president too much power; anybody in that position would use that power the way it has been used in the past,” she says.

Kamya argues that the solution is to dismantle the power concentrated in the president through devolution. Basing her campaign on Article 255 of the Constitution, she is trying to persuade Ugandans to “use their power to demand that the Electoral Commission organise a national referendum to reduce the powers and authority of the president.”

She is targeting changes to Articles 98, 99 and 155 of the Constitution, which give the president immunity from prosecution while holding office and almost unlimited powers to make appointments to key offices.

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The Constitution allows the president to make appointments to nearly every public position of influence, from the Cabinet, judiciary, security organs, the central bank, commissions and authorities, to the emerging oil sector, including some 90 seats in parliament.

It bestows on him the prerogative of mercy, gives him control of the Consolidated Fund, and exempts him from prosecution. Given the power and influence such a structure provides to the one who controls it, Ms Kamya argues such a person would be hard to beat in any election.

System steeped in impunity

But more importantly, she argues, the system encourages impunity.

“Under Uganda’s Constitution, the president of Uganda is the sole employer, provider and benefactor. He wields enough authority, power and influence to do almost anything he wants, especially with a unicameral parliament, and yet he cannot be taken to court,” she states.

The law requires a petition to have the backing of 10 per cent of registered voters, equivalent to 1.4 million people currently, to seek a referendum to amend the Constitution. She says she is halfway there and plans to submit all the signatures to the Electoral Commission early next year.

While political analysts doubt that she will make any headway against an incumbent determined to maintain the status quo, Kamya thinks winning a referendum will be easier than challenging Museveni in an election because, “this is not about Museveni losing power.”

According to Mwambutsya Ndebesa, a lecturer in history and development studies at Makerere University, while Ms Kamya may find it easy to achieve the required threshold of registered voters, calling a referendum would still depend on the goodwill of the state.

“First of all, verification of the signatures is vested in the Electoral Commission, which may not be impartial in this matter; and, even if the signatures were verified, the state has the option of stonewalling on this issue until the petitioners simply give up,” he said.

The EC, however, dismissed questions over its impartiality, with spokesman Jotham Taremwa stating that once Kamya “submits her petition with all the legal requirements fulfilled, we will handle it in accordance with the law”.

The electoral body’s current roadmap includes plans for a re-run in presidential elections, should such a need arise. It does not make room for eventualities like a referendum.

Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, MP for Kyadondo East, said that given the past conduct of the ruling party and its need to retain power, it is doubtful the state would allocate money for a referendum.

He added that Ms Kamya would also have to deal with a lingering suspicion among people who did not understand why she left the Forum for Democratic Change, Uganda’s largest opposition party by parliamentary representation, which she herself helped found in 2006.

But Kamya insists a legitimate demand for a referendum cannot be ignored.

By her own admission, the call for a referendum is likely to shake up Uganda’s political landscape because “there are many people in the opposition who do not buy into the classical federalism” that she is advocating.

That, she says, is likely to see many prominent figures in the opposition campaign on the same platform as Museveni. However, she plans to counter that by linking the referendum question to regional and local issues to help people understand how the current power structure cheats them and maintains a status quo that does not work in their best interests.

Ms Kamya is also likely to have run-ins with Buganda monarchists and traditionalists whose idea of federalism is a hybrid that combines monarchism and elements of classical federalism to form what they call “federo.”

READ: Beti’s talking federo, it’s raining districts, my head is spinning...

“The pre-Independence state was never dismantled; it was designed for the purpose of ruling and exploiting us. It still haunts us. We need to dismantle it and build a new system that can work for Uganda,” she argued.

READ: Uganda MPs Say Federo is Not Museveni's to Grant

Additional reporting by Gaaki Kigambo

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