In Uganda, it is common to have party members run as independents without ceasing their party membership. Amongst these independents, only a few reject parties because they see themselves as belonging to none, in fact, it is very rare.
Majority become independent after having been voted out in party primaries, especially when they attribute the failure to win primaries to a cheated endeavor. A huge debate and concern has emerged on whether this norm is yet to end?
After two decades of multi-party democracy, political parties still face challenges of weak structures, administration and regulations. These have resulted in resentment and factionalism in parties arising from disputes in party primaries and internal processes. Could the electoral commission and political parties solve this resilience? As this makes political parties look non-relevant or weak which despises the twenty years of multi-partism, and the greater democratization processes
As the country heads to nominations of presidential, parliamentary and local government candidates, many aspirants have already shown interest in standing as independents. These are part of the larger NRM party exodus citing irregularities and sham NRM party primaries which didn’t meet the free and fair test.
This is partly true because violence, irregularity and immorality were widespread during the NRM party primaries which even included deaths, destructions, voter bribery, intimidation among others. The NRM party chairman H.E Yoweri Museveni attributed the shambolic primaries to the general weak and greedy NRM Electoral Commission and its failure to correct its mistakes.
The concern remains that, who will solve the mess at the NRM electoral commission and NRM secretariat in general? Because the trend has kept growing day and night which purely reflects a weak and dis-organised party which gives legitimacy to concerns raised by independents, but also makes regulations against independent party members impossible.
Also, as the NUP goes into the vetting processes to ascertain party flag bearers, analysts have already criticized the vetting method as used by NUP as barbaric and non-democratic since only a group of a few people conduct the selections, lacks transparency and acceptability with members participating in it as a test to the party.
This creates a big worry that the country’s leading opposition political party could be at the edge of a pending mass exodus of independent candidates frustrated by the vetting process
Allegations of bribery, favoritism and influence have already been raised against the vetting committee and the party’s administration for example, it has been alleged that Chairman Nyanzi (Bobi Wine’s) brother is selling party tickets to the highest bidder, an allegation that can neither be rubbished nor confirmed due to the barbaric method used by the NUP Electoral Commision.
It has always been alleged that Bobi Wine and the Secretary General Rubongoya are favoring the girl friend and concubines for certain parliamentary and local council positions. This can also neither be rubbished or asserted because the scandals in an opaque system could be inevitable. And also, Bobi Wine is favouring his elder brother Chairman Nyanzi for Kawempe South parliamentary ticket yet Nyanzi cannot debate a full sentence in English.
This questions the leadership qualities that the party and the country desires and the transparency methodology for the selections and this could see party members rise up as independents with others even forming factions or joining other political parties in the opposition or even the ruling NRM.
But why this opaque, dark, kangaroo and barbaric method? Every member is suspicious about it, everyone is suspicious about it, and myself, I’m suspicious about it. The party has had five years of preparation and organization and any excuse can never be enough to the conscious.
It has always been propaganda and a disinformation tool that frustrated NUP members who join the ruling NRM are always bought, while those who leave NRM and join the NUP are not bought.
However, this disinformation is always championed to cover internal challenges and administration concerns that cause frustrations in political parties and subsequent exits. Is it the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end to the increasing independents in a multi-party democracy?
