The Mouthpiece — 29 May 2011
On Thursday, 26 May at the launch of former Democratic President Dr Paul Ssemogerere’s book, titled “Reality Check: Political Party Financing in Uganda”, a statehouse official, Hippo Twebaze said NRM is a mass party meaning it needs more funding than any other party because it has to reach out to its vast membership. Hippo is a political scientist who described himself as the only Marxist left in Uganda. Those who have read political science know very well that Karl Marx the father of Marxism ideology foresaw and worked for an egalitarian society. Marxism is diametrically opposed to ultra capitalism exhibited by the ruling NRM.
In fact, Marxists and capitalists are like oil and water. Accordingly, if Hippo is a Marxist, he had a place in the NRM party up to 1987 when the party experienced an ideological shift to neoliberalism and adopted Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs). I will not labour to explain what Marxism is for lack of space. Rather, I wish to state what a mass party should be. Political Scientists classify political parties into various classes. However, this article focuses on mass and cadre parties. For the benefit of all readers, I will not raise technical terms lest many readers fail to understand me.
Mass parties are not defined by the number of members they have in the register rather on the programmes that aim to improve the lives of the masses. The NRM leaders and cadres can call their party a mass party only if their party has programmes that are appealing to the masses. I know the NRM cadres will rush to remind us of UPE, USE, “Prosperity for All” (PFA) and so forth. I am hesitant to believe that these programmes were intended to uplift the masses. While in principle, they sound good, in practice they were introduced for political expediency – remember UPE was promised because Museveni feared Ssemo as he is fondly called was about to trounce him on polls. Otherwise, why would he wait for the campaign time to adopt programmes? UPE which started in 1997 is supposed to have its products in the first year at the university, I urge whoever is capable to go to Makerere University and establish how many of the 1st year Medicine or Pharmacy or Law students went through UPE schools. A mass party should empower its members economically, intellectually and otherwise.
How many of the NRM MPs have the wherewithal to oppose the NRM chairman on any anti-people programme? How many NRM MPs have opposed the proliferation of districts, ministries or even the appointment of people implicated in corruption scandals to public offices? Wait a moment – you will hear that the proposed constitutional amendments have been passed into law by our MPs who in practice are Museveni’s Parliamentarians – thus the label MPs. A few days ago, we saw the appointment of a person that was implicated in the Chogm saga to a de facto number two position? How many sons and daughters of the peasants can ably access jobs in URA, NPA or how many of the sons of the peasants can head projects in ministry of finance? How many of the masses are able to make independent decisions when it comes to voting?
I know virtually all NRM voters practice what is called pocket-book voting as opposed to phototropic voting. Pocket-book voting is where the goodies or freebies one gets during the campaign period determine how and for whom they cast their vote. This is opposed to socio-tropic voting which is influenced by the issues raised by the candidates. This is not the case with the NRM.
I hear in the yellow book, there are 8 or 9 million. How many of the mass membership turned to vote the NRM during the February election? How come with evidence of pre-ticked ballot stuffing presented by Ssekikubo and Dr Besigye, the NRM got only 5million votes? By the way, my mother is also in the register of the “Mass Party”. How does the party account to her if when she was suffering from fibroids she couldn’t get treatment in Mulago. I surmise that NRM is a cadre party because only the party cadres benefit from being its members because they have access to state resources – thanks to the spoils system.
Vincent Nuwagaba
Vincent Nuwagaba is a human rights defender
vnuwagaba@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment