Has DP been caught with its pants down?
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From: "Anne Mugisha" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Subject: [FedsNet] Political Parties
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 15:29:49 -0500
This is great news. May be now some quarters will understand why we take battles to the donors. He who pays the piper calls the tune.. Now let's watch and see where (or whether) Museveni will throw the spanner in the works.
Headlines
Museveni OK's political parties
By Andrew M. Mwenda
Shocks many
Movementists
President Yoweri Museveni has recommended that Uganda should open up to multiparty politics.
Top Movement sources told 93.3 Monitor FM Newsnight programme last evening that the president announced the new direction on Tuesday, 28 February 2003, during a meeting at State House.
President Museveni, who has been most critical of multiparty politics, surprised Movement leaders when he passionately called for a return to political party competition.
President Museveni reportedly urged his comrades to "make a tactical From Page 1
compromise" on multiparty politics in order to realise the "strategic objectives" of the Movement.
The president was meeting the ad hoc committee set up by the Movement's National Executive Council (NEC) in Kyankwanzi on 18 December 2001.
The committee was mandated to "examine the performance of the Movement system in light of the current political trends/developments, including calls to open up to political party pluralism with a view to guide the political future of this country".
President Museveni reportedly rejected arguments by one of the members, Prof. Tarsis Kabwegyere, who said Uganda would degenerate into chaos if political parties were allowed to freely operate.
Sources at the meeting told The Monitor that President Museveni said he is now building a strong and professional army to stop political chaos.
"What could perhaps happen is political disintegration like what is happening in Zambia now," President Museveni reportedly said.
The president conceded that opening up may lead to the break up of the Movement into different factions. "But that will also be a new kind of political struggle which we will undertake in order to realise our vision," the president reportedly said.
Several sources at the meeting said that the president was relentless, persistent and passionate while calling for a return to multiparty politics.
Museveni argued that it is not politics but the economy that has made him change his position on political pluralism.
"The fundamental consideration is protection of investment," President Museveni reportedly said. "We have done a lot to attract investment in this country. We now have an open market in America [United States] and Europe has also opened her markets to us. The people who have opened their markets to us are the ones who want us to open political space to multiparty politics. We should not take decisions that will scare away investors because if there is disinvestment (sic), it will take years and years before we can convince them to return."
The president also told the meeting that the Movement should open up in order to purify itself and consolidate loyalty within its ranks.
He reportedly said that when the Movement assumed power in 1986, it brought in everyone on board to rebuild the country.
But over time, he said, people began to say they do not want to belong to the Movement anymore.
"I gave people like [Democratic Party leader Paul] Ssemogerere every responsibility yet they went ahead to undermine the Movement even when they were in Cabinet and later resigned," the president reportedly said.
"Should we continue with such people? Let's let them to go. This is the time for okweggyako [to free ourselves]. We want them, they do not want us. Let them go," he said.
The meeting was discussing the 123-page interim report that the ad hoc committee is scheduled to present before the NEC on 22 February, if the programme remains unchanged.
The report, a copy of which The Monitor has, recommends the retention of the Movement, but with some level of opening up.
However, after the president presented his new position, the meeting agreed to recommend to the NEC that Uganda should return to multiparty politics.
The interim report, however, has an attached minority report prepared by Local Government minister Jaberi Bidandi Ssali.
Mr Bidandi's report clearly suggests a return to full multiparty politics.
Internal Affairs minister Eriya Kategaya, Attorney General Francis Ayume, and another committee member, Laban Kirya, also initially supported Mr Bidandi's position.
However, only Mr Bidandi signed the report.
"Even the main interim report had suggested some level of opening up but it was not specific enough on multipartyism. It would seem that is why Bidandi prepared his minority report that specifically pointed the direction the Movement should take," a senior Movement official told The Monitor last night.
Mr Bidandi and Mr Richard Bakojja had prepared a similar report for the National Political Commissar shortly after the 2001 parliamentary elections, but Mr Bidandi's latest minority report went straight to the president.
Another top official at the Movement Secretariat yesterday told The Monitor that after Museveni accepting the new position on political parties, there is little the Movement hard-liners can do to stop the wind of change.
"Once Museveni accepted it, it is all done now. After the NEC meeting, it will go back to the Movement organs and down to the population; and that will be it," he said.
He said even former critics of pluralism have suddenly changed. "Only a month ago people like Moses Kigongo [Movement vice chairman] were opposed to the opening up. But now see what he is doing and saying as he moves around the country."
The official confirmed that President Museveni's main concern is the danger of losing markets and investors from Europe and America.
"Investors have been fearful of an uncertain political future in Uganda, especially the danger of insurgency if the Movement continues suppressing political parties," the Movement official said.
He said even the NEC's hard-liners such as Maj. Kakooza Mutale are bound by the main report "because they have all signed it and it also recommends some degree of opening up".
Other members of the NEC's ad hoc committee include National Political Commissar Crispus Kiyonga and ministers Kisamba Mugerwa (agriculture), Omwony Ojwok (economic monitoring), Baguma Isoke (lands) and Okot Ogong (parliamentary affairs).
Others are the presidential advisor for political affairs, Maj. Kakooza Mutale; MPs Hope Mwesigye, Dan Kidega, Jesca Eriyo, William Kinobe, and Betty Aketch.
Additional reporting by Badru Hassan Zziwa.
. From tomorrow The Monitor will serialise the full interim report and the Bidandi minority report. The Sunday Monitor shall run an insight into the historic meeting, giving details of what the president said and what other proponents and opponents of Movement politics had to say.
February 18, 2003 13:53:23
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