By Derrick Wandera
The appointment of Democratic Party (DP) President General, Nobert Mao into President Museveni’s cabinet has left the future of the opposition party hanging in balance.
Mr Mao was appointed Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affair, hours after signing an agreement with the National Resistance Movement (NRM) that the DP party officials indicated that the partnership is a bilateral arrangement to put Uganda first without creating tensions among leaders so as to ease service delivery.
The leaders were not available by press time to explain the appointments that followed hours later.
But some senior party leaders and political analysts yesterday told Daily Monitor that it was clear that Mr Mao and a few other top brass were plotting for what they referred to as “self-interest” deals in the agreement.
Dr Sultan Kakuba, a political Scientist and analyst at Kyambogo University told this newspaper in an interview for this story that although the move might be a sign of mature politics, it would weaken the DP since the country operates in a multiparty dispensation.
Mao’s turbulent times as party President could have started much earlier but he faced the biggest test of his time in leadership in 2020 when there was a mass exodus of senior party leaders defecting into the new opposition party, National Unity Platform (NUP).
This followed a series of accusations and bickering within the party as Mr Mao called some of his party members were watermelon who pretended to be in DP and yet worked with NUP while the party members hit back at their leader indicating that he is a pumpkins who is party NRM and DP.
Mr Mao who has already run as the party Presidential candidate, twice, including the 2021 polls could have followed in the footsteps of his predecessor but it is not clear whether there were consultations from the party National Executive Committee (NEC) or senior party members.
“This is going to bring about factionalism within the party and the move has made NRM stronger because I know that there could be members who don’t approve of the move,”
Dr Kakuba said.
In 1954, after a series of meeting in Masaka District, the Democratic Party (DP) was founded in response to this feeling of marginalisation among the Catholics with Stanislaus Mugwanya as their first president-general.
The party, according to historians, has faced numerous challenges of their party presidents being chosen as ministers in President Museveni’s government including Dr Paul Kawanga Ssemwogere after NRM took power in 1986.
“This conversation between NRM and DP has been going on for months and you will need to know that the top leaders of DP have been aware of the conversation and it is actually to the credit of the DP leaders that there has not been any leakage,”
Mao said in one of the Twitter spaces he held on Wednesday night.
Shortly after the pronouncement, dozens of DP members protested the agreement and between NRM and DP threatening to cross to NUP indicating that no one in the party had been consulted as the constitution mandates.
A section of the DP leadership also held a press at their party headquarters at City House where the party spokesperson, Mr Opio Okoler informed members that a National Executive Committee (NEC) would sit soon to pronounce itself on the matter.
“Of course members are in panic but I want to tell them that they should not get worried because everything is still under control DP is still intact because the matter has to first to through NEC for discussion and ratification,”
Mr Opio said
The DP constitution provides for NEC, which is composed of 11 members is the organ of the party which is supposed to ratify an agreement before any position is adopted by the party which members say it was never followed.
“This was an individual move and it is a blessing in disguise,” says Dr Henry Ssewanyana, a senior party member adding that, “For a long time, we have felt that the president was not leading the party into the right direction and we knew he had been working for (President) Museveni because he is out to finish the opposition. A far as I know he is no longer the president and we shall get someone who stands for our interests.”
Two days after he was declared winner of the February 18, 2016 presidential elections, President Museveni vowed to finish opposition from the playing field which has been witnessed by the number of opposition leaders he has appointed as his cabinet ministers.
Other major defections
In June 2016, Ms Nakiwala Kiyinji who had been a DP stalwart was appointed by President Museveni to the position of State Minister for Youth and Children, a position she held until 2021 when she was replaced by the current Minister Sarah Mateke.
During the same appointments, President Museveni also appointed Uganda People’s Congress’ Beti Amongi as Minister of Lands and chose Uganda Federal Alliance President Beti Kamya as Minister of Kampala.
In 2021, during the most recent appointments, President Museveni appointed Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) vice President Joyce Nabossa Ssebugwawo to a position of State Minister for ICT and Ms Sarah Kanyike as State Minster for Elderly and Disability.
Prof Frederick Juuko, a political commentator from Makerere University says over the years NRM has always been anti-origination which never wanted people to come together citing the examples of Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) and DP.
“You see how the opposition in the country is hounded and repressed or compromised. Museveni’s kind of politics is a zero-sum-pay. When the political parties are organized and when they are not, he wins,”
Prof Juuko says.
He adds, “If he really was a democrat, he would allow the political parties move around the country and organise so that they can compete for power and if he loses he can come back again. The only organized group in this country is the army, the opposition isn’t because even when they have registered formidable wins, it has not because of political parties it is organisations like the People Power movements.”
What they say
Mr Gerald Siranda DP Secretary General said,
“The DP party will remain in operation and we have not joined the agreement as individuals we have gone in as a party. We have done this for the good of the people of Uganda just as some of our leaders painfully did many years ago.”
Mr Medard Ssegona, MP Busiro County East said,
“When I left the party, I told Mao that I had gone with but now he can see that. We knew that he was in a marriage which was unofficial but now they have wedded. There is a chance for the party to elect someone better to take over. The deal was to have Mao given a ministerial job and Siranda given a slot in EALA.”
Mr David Lewis Rubongoya, NUP secretary general said,
“It is not surprising to anyone and that is why we have always felt very uncomfortable working with those people because they end up sabotaging everything. Museveni has always treated politics like that by intimidating, buying off or killing his opponents. As we have always said, that we shall see them by their actions.”
