A few weeks ago, I was co-hosted on Voice of America’s Reporters Roundtable programme to discuss whether dominant parties — or what journalist Vincent Makori referred to as “single parties” — prevalent in many countries in Africa are capable of ushering in democracy.

On the basis of empirical evidence from across the continent, I said yes, it’s possible for democracy to emerge in an environment dominated by a single party but largely not due to its designs or wish but sustained contestation and pressure.

I added, with hindsight, that such outcomes normally do not materialise until a sizeable number of respected individuals abandon such a party to join the opposition, either due to lack of internal democracy or its dictatorial tendencies.

In most cases, this doesn’t come about in economically happy times but when the country is on the edge with a lot of internal and international pressure to democratise.

My point is that former members of the dominant party who abandon it to join the opposition are normally not only better equipped to withstand the subsequent state persecution that is unleashed on them but have also accumulated enough wealth to endure economic sabotage aimed at bankrupting them.

In addition, such individuals also understand the tricks of the oppressor and have sympathisers within the system and internationally to mount enough pressure to cause meaningful reform.

Overall, this is what happened in countries such as Kenya under Moi, Zambia under Kenneth Kaunda, Senegal, Ghana and, most recently, Nigeria. And by bringing about democracy, I don’t mean procedural democracy — with regular elections but democracy in a qualitative sense — where the process is free, contestants are treated equally, outcome is not known in advance and the vote is properly counted.

In general, this is how democracy has unfolded across the continent — especially where the dominant party is the Independence party or the one that was born immediately after.

Besides parties or movements that fought for and negotiated Independence, however, there is a second breed of dominant parties that emerged in late 1980s and early 1990s. These are parties born out of successful guerrilla warfare and defeating a dictatorial regime.

Such parties are prevalent in countries such as Ethiopia, Rwanda and Uganda. In this bracket, Uganda’s National Resistance Movement (NRM) of President Yoweri Museveni occupies a special place since it was the first to wage an armed rebellion and overthrow a government by military means.

Unlike liberation movements that fought and negotiated their way to power, the NRM is one of the very few to win outright on the battlefield, set up a government and bring on board whoever it wants on its own terms.

From what’s documented, clearly, the NRM has ushered in procedural democracy but is variously accused of regularly rigging both the process and outcome.

In that sense, like the “old” dominant parties, the NRM can only be forced to open up and let the free will of the people reign. In other words, successful armed struggle doesn’t guarantee democracy, just as Independence didn’t; they are both only a step towards, but not the thing.

However, as elsewhere, it seems, it will be former members of the NRM that will bring about its eventual capitulation since they not only seem to be the most formidable, determined and rumoured to be moneyed, but they are also the ones that the State pays more attention to.

And the list of such members is long — including a former army commander, vice-president, ministers and even prime minister who was also a secretary-general of the ruling party.

Looking at how the State under the NRM has treated such individuals —in cases including members of their families without them giving up — it’s possible to see why they might succeed.

This point was brought home recently when the police simultaneously arrested former premier Amama Mbabazi and Dr Kizza Besigye for nothing but seeking to introduce their presidential candidatures to their supporters.

That it’s only former members of NRM that seem more determined and prepared to take on their former boss tells us that armed liberators may not bring about democracy but they give birth to its most fearless activists and advocates.

Dr Christopher Kayumba, PhD, is a senior lecturer at the School of Journalism, the University of Rwanda, and managing consultant at MGC Consult. E-mail: [email protected]; Twitter: @CKayumba