Uganda - Election 1989
Several of the unusual characteristics of the elections in Uganda originate from the guerrilla war experiences of the National Resistance Army (NRA) and the National Resistance Movement (NRM) that developed from it toward the mid-1980s. In response to the Uganda Peoples' Congress (UPC) seizure of power through the deeply disputed multiparty elections of 1980, Yoweri Museveni and a small group of followers formed a guerilla army in Luwero District and began military operations to overthrow this newly established party regime. Like guerilla armies everywhere, they depended upon villagers for food and hidden shelter. The NRA formed the original "village resistance councils" to systematize communications between the army and the villages, and to facilitate the provision of food and shelter.
When the NRM took power in 1986, it added a new element to the unsolved political issues that had bedeviled Uganda since independence. It promised new and fundamental changes, but it also brought old fears to the surface. If this government demonstrated magnanimity toward its opponents and innovative solutions to Uganda's political difficulties, it also contributed significantly to the country's political tensions. This paradox appeared in one political issue after another through the first four years of the interim period. The most serious political question was the deepening division between the north and the south, even though these units were neither administrative regions nor socially or even geographically coherent entities.
The relationship of Buganda to the rest of Uganda, an issue forcibly kept off the public agenda for twenty years, re-emerged in public debate. Tension between the NRM and the political parties that had competed for power since independence became a new anxiety. In addition, the government's resort to political maneuvers and surprise tactics in two of its most important initiatives in 1989, national elections and the extension of the interim period of government, illustrated the NRM's difficulties in holding the nation to its political agenda.
To maintain the support of those villagers and of the urban middle class, Museveni formulated a populist message explaining the objective of his struggle against the government. This message, which eventually became the manifesto for the NRM, the "Ten Point Programme", provided the rationale for its political actions in the first years in power. While many surprising changes in the Movement's policy and underlying philosophy have occurred in the decade leading to the 1996 elections, the government has never repudiated its original doctrines. Instead, on a pragmatic basis, it has continued to use them where it found them helpful and ignored th!aTI when they were inconvenient.
In the "Ten Point Programme," the NRM argued that much of Uganda's problems had been caused by politicians who had created sectarian parties whose appeal was based on religion and ethnicity, rather than on fundamental changes in Uganda's economic structure. It dismissed the 1980-85 UPC government as inherently undemocratic - a view shared by most politically aware Ugandans. Thus, one of the NRM's ten points was the restoration of democracy through both resistance councils in which all villagers could participate, and Parliament. The connection between the two remained ambiguous - both in the document and in successive events. There is a contradiction between resistance councils in which popular democracy places power in the hands of the villagers, and the conventional notion of democracy with power in the hands of elite politicians. Whether, at the time it took power, the NRM intended resistance councils to elect representatives indirectly through succeeding tiers all the way through the National Resistance Council (NRC) or intended parties to contest national elections was not spelled out.
The NRM took power through the NRA's military victory over the Ugandan National Liberation Army (UNLA) and its allies in 1986. Until it adopted a new constitution and held acceptable national elections, the NRM's legitimacy rested on its military success. The NRM declared an interim period of four years between coming to power and holding national elections in which territorial constituencies were contested on a universal franchise. By 1990, this interim period was extended to ten years. During this time the NRM took cautious steps toward restoring democracy while ensuring that its grip on power would not be eroded. It extended the Resistance Council (RC) system throughout the country as a hierarchical structure with five levels from village through district (the county level, RC4, has remained inactive). Electoral colleges were developed to permit indirect elections to tiers above the village level. In the upper tiers (RC 2-5), the electoral college consisted of all the officials elected by the councils at the next lower level.
From the beginning of the interim period, the NRM gave its movement a monopoly on political activity. The NRM Secretariat was permitted to educate Ugandans through special schools it created and to mobilize them through meetings held in towns and villages. The President appointed the Resident District Commissioner (ROC - originally the Special District Administrator) as the highest national official in each district to coordinate these activities among other responsibilities. In addition, the NRM halted the advance of the pre-existing political parties by allowing them to maintain a legal existence and to operate their headquarters, but not to engage in politics. They were not permitted to sponsor candidates nor campaign for anyone in any elections for offices in the RCs. Since the parties were not allowed to hold national conventions, these restrictions had the effect of freezing, in place, to varying degrees, those leaders who held party office at the time of the NRM takeover. As a result, with the leader of the UPC in exile, the leader of the Democratic Party (DP), Dr. Paul Ssemogerere, became the logical choice of presidential candidate for the multiparty opposition.
Even though it restricted the parties when it came to power, the NRM also committed itself to the principle of a "broad-based" government in order to increase its legitimacy. It invited members of all political parties and other groups to join its government and to compete for elective office in RCs at all levels. At first, the NRM's adherence to this principle was quite remarkable. Key ministries in the first NRM cabinet (with the exceptions of Defense and Foreign Affairs) were given to the leaders in the existing political parties, while the NRM's own top officials were made deputy ministers. In addition, in its first years, members of the parties competed freely for election as officials of RCs at all levels. However, since that time, the degree to which either the Cabinet or RCs have been broad-based has steadily declined until now in the 1996 campaigns, when the President has all but replaced this principle with one of appointments based on loyalty to the Movement.
A parliament (named the National Resistance Council (NRC)) was created soon after the NRM came to power. Unlike the RCs, the NRC consisted of appointed members, known as "historicals", meaning those who had been in high NRM or NRA positions during the guerilla war, and later also those appointed to Cabinet.
National elections were held for the parliament (named the National Resistance Council (NRC)) from 11 February 1989 to 18 February 1989 in the first general elections since 1980. This new legislature replaced the appointed 98-member body of the same name.
Instead of having the officers of the Resistance Council RC 5s (the district-level councils) choose parliamentary representatives, a slightly larger electoral college was created by having representatives of all members of the subcounty RC's (RC 3s) meet and elect an NRC member for each of the 168 counties. To this number were added representatives.of special interest groups - women, youth, workers and the army - to be elected by electoral colleges established, except in the case of women, by subsequent legislation; and 20 representatives appointed by the President. This led to a parliament of about 284 representatives. No parties were pennitted to participate in these elections, whether by endorsing specific candidates or by campaigning in support of anyone. Candidates ran on the basis of "personal merit", but were free to announce that they belonged to a political party and that they supported multiparty politics. In fact, several UPC and DP party members won election to the 1989 NRC.
The election timetable was announced on 21 January 1989. No formal campaigning preceded the voting since political meetings were banned. The multi-stage polling process was generally peaceful and marked by a fair turnout. Final NRC results spelled defeat for a number of Cabinet Ministers and success for many first-time candidates. Presidential appointments took place in March. On 11 April, President of the Republic Yoweri Museveni opened the first session of the NRC with a call for unity and an end to "demagoguery, intrigues, corruption and obstructionism". "All our politics must be development oriented", he added. The previous day, President Museveni had named a new, 48-member Cabinet, which included four women.
In February 1989, the NRM government organized local and national elections on the basis of the RC structure that it had created. The government announced in the middle of January that there would be new elections, starting only three weeks later, for all resistance committee positions in RCs at every level, including, for the first time, the NRC. At the village, parish, and subcounty levels, the elections followed procedures the NRM had already introduced to form the RCs out of the combined membership of the resistance committees elected by the councils at each level. The same procedure was followed for the set of successive elections in urban areas, except that the RC-IIIs were named "wards" rather than subcounties and the RC-IVs "divisions" in- stead of counties. However, the RC-IIIs also gathered as an elec- toral college representing their counties or urban divisions to elect three representatives to the district RC, one of whom had to be a woman, as well as one representative to the NRC. Unlike other RC elections, nominees for the NRC did not have to win successive elections in the lower RCs in order to be candidates. Each district RC also chose one representative to the NRC. Only women were permitted to run for this position.
Many of the original NRC members, who continued in office without facing an election in 1989, were appointed to be election supervisors. The only restrictions placed on candidates were to re- quire them to be residents of their constituencies and to prohibit former members of Obote 's or Amin's intelligence agencies from becoming candidates. The use of county and district boundaries for constituencies removed the possibility of gerrymandering. Nomination required completion of two simple forms and the support of five qualified electors. Candidates did not have to pay a "deposit." There was no registration of voters. No campaigning was allowed, and candidates could not publicly identify themselves with a political party. The rules limited candidates' campaigns to a brief introductory speech at the time of the elections. The elections had to be held in sequence because the RCs formed a pyramid in which the electorate at each higher level (above RC-II) was composed of elected officials from the next lower level. Elections of resistance committee officials by voters in village and parish RCs were held only three weeks after President Museveni's announcement in most parts of the country. One week later, elections were held for subcounty resistance committees. The newly elected subcounty committees immediately traveled to their county headquarters to choose two representatives to the district RC ; the following week they assembled again to elect both the county's representative to the NRC and the county's woman representative to the district RC. Finally, at the end of February 1989, each district RC (except Gulu) elected its woman representative to the NRC.
Election was determined by public queuing behind the preferred candidate. Contestants stood facing away from the queues and were not permitted to turn around to see who was supporting them. The use of public queuing as a voting procedure was sharply criticized because it opened the possibility of coercion. The government agreed that a secret ballot would have been better, but argued that, for the time being, the expense and prospect of misuse of ballot boxes made queuing a more desirable method of voting. All elec- tions were held during February 1989, except in Gulu District and Usuk County, Soroti District, where they were delayed because of security problems. The Usuk elections were held the following month and the Gulu elections in October 1989. The youth and workers elections had not been held by the end of 1990.
In the February 1989 elections, village turnout was reported to be high in most areas other than those where rebels were active. Almost all elected resistance committee members, the only voters permitted in higher elections, participated in electing NRC members and the upper RCs. Fourteen ministers and deputy ministers lost NRC elections. Only two women won elections in contests against men. Four important members of Obote's government between 1980 and 1985 won seats in county constituencies, and their success provided an indication of the absence of government in- terference in the voting. Most losers conceded that the elections were conducted fairly, although they frequently objected to the rules under which they had to compete. The most vociferous criticism came from party leaders in the DP and the UPC. As a party, the UPC had not been active since the NRM government took office. DP politicians, on the other hand, had run in the earlier RC elections and had won a large number of them. According to the DP's own calculations, in two-thirds of the district RCs its candidates had won 84 percent of the seats in elections before February 1989.
DP leaders felt they had a good chance to win national power democratically through the RC system, if the DP were permitted to compete as a party. Officials of both parties regarded the election rules as a step by the NRM government to remove them from competitive political activity. They insisted that elections without participation by competing parties could not be considered democratic. The government response was, in a meeting with the DP in 1989, to question whether or not political parties were necessary for democracy.
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