Are the 2021 Elections Already Rigged?; President Yoweri Museveni Has Resorted To Milton Obote’s Gerrymandering Tricks Of 1980

Are the 2021 Elections Already Rigged?; President Yoweri Museveni Has Resorted To Milton Obote’s Gerrymandering Tricks Of 1980

On Thursday 29^th July 2020, the Ugandan parliament passed a resolution that led to the creation of 46 newly created constituencies. The net effect was that the parliament will have 46 more members of parliament, making it a whooping 526 mps in the house!

The approval in the plenary session chaired by Speaker Rebecca Kadaga followed a motion by the Minister for Local Government, Raphael Magezi in which he said that the counties are created basing on a population quarter of 150,000, means of communication, level of economy, wishes of the people and others.

The creation of more counties was also premised on the argument of effective representation, but the timing itself, in a campaign period make it look like an election strategy to win the 2021 elections.

Given the fact that almost 85% of the created constituencies are NRM strongholds, this strategy fits in the category of a mischievous political trick called Gerrymandering.

Be critical enough to note there was no mention of the same in opposition hotspots like Kasese , Arua , Gulu, kampala etc.

 

Instead there was prominence in NRM strongholds of western Uganda where you have mention of Ruhaama, Ruhinda ,Rwampara , Bugangaizi , , Buhweju,Kiboga Mitooma, kagadi etc and many others which will obviously add numbers to NRM in parliament.

 

History repeats itself

Interestingly, when Obote was strategizing to win the 1980 elections, he used the same gerrymandering tricks.

Candidate Obote smartly identified all the UPC strongholds and divided them into new constituencies.

For instance he divided the strongest UPC Strongholds of Opac district into Opac north, Opac south, Opac west and Opac east. He went on to do the same in most of eastern and northern Uganda which were all UPC strongholds.

This gerrymandering gave Obote an immediate advantage in the 1980 elections..

Obote was also smart enough NOT TO make the mistake of dividing areas opposed to UPC and much more aligned to DP like Mpigi district which remained big but with just one member of parliament.

One important aspect about the 1980 elections, and which is not talked about these days, is that it was contested in a parliamentary format which prescribes that the party that wins more seats in the form of members of parliament makes government.

Due to this gerrymandering exercise it meant that UPC already had 17 unopposed seats even before vote was cast. This clearly shows that UPC was bound to win the elections, notwithstanding the DP dominance in Buganda.

The problem (that led to insinuations of rigging) was that the army of the time was more aligned to UPC and was central in making a lot of human rights violations that undermined Obote’s victory.

The partisan UNLA army, committed crimes of torture and killed most of the opponents of the UPC.

It these violations that made the 1980 elections look like rigged elections. In fact the UNLA army made Obote himself look like one of the worst killers, yet there is a lot of evidence to show that he wasn’t.

For instance, if you want to find out Obote’s track record, you look at how he handled the political personalities who had opposed him in the 60s.

In fact even the man, who had tried to assassinate him at Lugogo, was simply arrested and jailed at Luzira prison. I think I am digressing because the subject was gerrymandering and not Obote’s human rights record.

BUT THE DIGRESSING WAS CONTEXTUAL.

I was simply saying that politically speaking, the landscape of the 1980 favored UPC to win those elections.

But since history has mostly been written by the victims and losers of the 1980 elections, they combined the atrocities committed by the army and combined them with the political fate of the time.

Politically speaking Obote was in a better shape than all the other contestants and would have won those particular elections, anyway-notwithstanding his unpopularity in Buganda.

When BBC stringer Robin white interviewed the then army chief of staff Maj gen David Oyite (the clip is there on YouTube) he asked him about the fate of the elections, he simply told him (Robin White) to go and ask same question to the common wealth observers who had come to cover those elections.

The unanimous view of the commonwealth observers was that the elections had been won by UPC, notwithstanding the unfairness that preceded them.

So when the Ugandan parliament sat and created another 46 constituencies, it was a case of history repeating itself.

Gerrymandering was a waste of time

 Just like it was with UPC dominating all the newly created counties, the NRM is dominant in all the newly created counties and will therefore boosted by an additional number of members of parliament to continue endorsing their views in the august house.

The only difference is that this time we are conducting elections basing on a presidential system contrary to 1980 when it was done under a parliamentary system where it was deemed vital to have more MPs in the house.

But while the NRM strategists might be boasting about their gerrymandering tricks, we need to remind them that they are not enough to win the 2021 elections. Why?

One;, because this is a presidential system where an election is conducted on a one man, one vote basis. This means that the person who gathers more aggregate votes throughout the country can become the next resident of Uganda.

The gerrymandering would have been very effective in a parliamentary system because of the big number of assured members of parliament that arose from the creation of new counties.

Secondly, this also means that someone can have fewer MPs in the august house and still become president. So the gerrymandering was advantageous in as far as dominating parliament is concerned and not in influencing the aggregate outcome of the presidential elections.

So when you think deeper, you find that since NRM was already dominant in the parliament, then the gerrymandering was simply a waste of time in as far as influencing the outcome of the presidential elections is concerned because they already had control of the august house.

And the economic consequence is that the cost of expenditure on parliament alone has risen to over Shs 500 billion per annum.

The way forward

The creation of more counties simply means that the house will have over 600 members of parliament. This obviously will result into calls for the creation of another forum for effective representation.

 This will simply mean that we have two houses, the lower and upper house akin to the senate and the congress to create room for more effective debate.

Otherwise I shudder to think that the speaker can identify the eloquent legislators in a house of over 560 mps, it looks like a complete circus.

If the NRM doesn't make some of these corrections , especially in regard to reducing the cost of public expenditure , then it will be incumbent on the next govt to do so.

The author Fred Daka Kamwada is a journalist, socio-political analyst and a blogger

kamwadafred@gmail.com