by Suleman Mugula
The Monitor (Kampala)
Allow me to respond to Andrew Mwenda's article 'It is not Museveni's job to organise his Opponents,' The Monitor May 15. While I agree with most of the arguments as expounded, I wish to disagree with the latter part of the article where Mwenda asserts that the opposition parties in Uganda today are under organised, disorganised, and very weak.
Ugandans are asking big questions about deteriorating conditions in their country.
It is very difficult to understand which yardstick Mwenda used to evaluate the strength of the opposition. I wonder whether he judged the parties as per regional standards, African standards or world standards. And I wonder if we are to judge the parties by what he expects from them which they have not done.
To begin with, collectively one has to credit the parties for having been so resilient. The UPC leadership with people like Cecilia Ogwal and Rwanyarare, have stood for multi-party democracy since 1986 to date.
It is true UPC has some problems, but UPC was not formed yesterday. Despite the current in-house fighting, it is still a party which is capable of putting its house in order and revive itself.
Similarly the DP cannot be written off and cannot be called dead. It is a party whose leadership was able to attract other leaders from other parties and in 1996 using the multi-party ticket, provided a presidential candidate who nearly took the presidency of the country had the elections been free and fair.
This is the same party which has for three consecutives terms defeated the Movement-supported candidates for the Mayoral post of Kampala. This is a party which has a number of MPs elected on merit by the people on a DP ticket.This is the party which together with other opposition leaders have now and again taken the Museveni government to court and won landmark cases. Yes, the DP has some internal issues yet to be sorted out, but that cannot make us under-estimate the party.
Kizza Besigye is known and respected as a reformer in Uganda
As for FDC, the youngest of the major parties, one ought to be very incautious to underestimate its organisational strength. This is a party many of whose members are credited for being the whistle-blowers who started the Reform Agenda, which culminated in the presidential candidature of Col. Kizza Besigye in 2001 and which candidature overstretched the strength of our President and the NRM and had to resort to un-ethical practices to remain in power. These are the people who from 2001 have joined other Ugandans in and out of Uganda to continue with the struggle for democratic governance in the country. The period 2001-2005 has not been smooth sailing for the NRM testified by the many arrests, harassment, intimidation of members of the Reform Agenda.
Within a few months of opening political space, FDC was able to swiftly organise and fulfil all the requirements for registration and after a protracted struggle got registered. It came out with a platform/ vision for the country which the NRM has not been able to challenge. It came up with the diverse leadership in terms of academic qualification, administrative experience, gender diversity, age diversity.
It has competent personalities to handle defence, Finance, the Judiciary, the Administration and the political development of the country.
These are men and women whose integrity the NRM (ed.: the National Reform Movement of President Yoweri Museveni - which has operated Uganda as a sole proprietorship for over twenty years) has not been able to challenge. Within a few months after her birth the FDC has moved the breadth and length of the country opening branches and giving hope to Ugandans. This is a party which after a meek anti-British/(anti)Geldof demonstration, organised a massive pro-Irish (pro) Geldof/democracy demonstration within a short time. The NRM has felt the unreversable presence of the FDC, so much that apart from the mudslinging and demonising spearheaded by the President himself, the prisons are getting full of FDC members including Members of Parliament of late.
Young as she is, the FDC has been able to win the confidence of the International Community who have come to accept that the country has no leadership deficit.
Given the strength of the opposition, the NRM-O camp is in total panic and so disorganised that it has even lost the way, demonstrated by for example the manufacture of the omnibus white paper, the changing of the voting procedure in Parliament, the Shs5 million saga, the hiring of a PR damage control machine, the bungled referendum debate, the Kalangala 'shame' to mention a few.
I feel all these demonstrate the level of disorganisation under President Museveni being more than what Mwenda attributed to the opposition, If the Opposition was so disorganised and hopeless as Mwenda would like to put it, then the government would not be in such a panic. It is therefore wrong for Mwenda to claim that the opposition is weak. Judged from the environment and times, the opposition has demonstrated more ability than many people's expectations.
Lastly, much as the opposition might be with some weakness, we need to appreciate as Ugandans that we have a duty to help the parties establish their presence. There has been 19 years of demonising them and the campaign is still going on spearheaded by the President. It doesn't help Uganda for respected Ugandans like Mwenda to join the bandwagon to intensify the demonisation of the parties.
It is time for patriotic Ugandans to take a stand and to build our opposition. The country has tested a monolithic system and we have witnessed what it can offer.
Let us built the parties not destroy them.
The writer is is a member of FDC External Secretariat in Johanesburg, South Africa.
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