By Ronald Muhinda
In politics, you reap what you sow. If you sow lies and blackmail, you can never harvest truths.
Political party financing in Uganda has been a burning issue mainly since 2019, 5yrs after it started in 2014.
Multi-party political participation in elections under Mr. Museveni started in 2006, 20yrs after capturing power by force. The NRM-O was the state and fully financed by public funds. No NRM without public funds.
Opposition parties were financed by a few members. But their resource pool wasn’t limitless. Funds inevitably dry up.
By 2011 elections, only Kizza Besigye could run a national campaign using money he sourced himself. He gave Mr. Museveni a bloody nose that Museveni picked over 2.5trillion from the BoU to run his campaign. As Inflation skyrocketed, others opposition parties of Norbert Mao (DP), Olara Ottunu (UPC), Betty Kamya (UFA), Bidandi Ssali (PPP) etc who had contested were broke.
By 2014, IPOD which started in 2010 under NIMD and funded by DGF (not gov’t) had convinced the regime, through facilitated dialogue, to fund political parties with MPs according to their numerical strength. The numerical strength idea was smuggled in by gov’t funded NRM to again take more money from gov’t.
If I recall well, in the 2014/15 budget, Electoral Commission started budgeting for 40m annually for each MP in parliament to go to the party they represented.
As the funding started, Mr. Museveni moved in to manipulate the financing scheme as it appeared parties were vulnerable without the money. The funding became the parties’ lifeline. In fact, donations to opposition parties started collapsing.
Parties couldn’t operate without Museveni EC money. Museveni turned the scheme into a drip policy.
In 2019, as People Power became a sensation and deliberately targeted Kizza Besigye’s defiance and now defunct FDC stubbornness, the People Power movement leaders and subordinates launched an extensive attack against political party financing using public funds.
They attacked FDC and Besigye of getting what they wrongfully called IPOD money from Museveni yet, they were not fighting Museveni. They didn’t care to know that Besigye they targeted had never got money from gov’t, not even as FDC President for 7yrs. They couldn’t seperare FDC from Besigye.
As destiny would have it, in 2020, People Power acquired a 16yr old political party from Moses Kibalama, registered in 2004 as NURDP and renamed it NUP. They went on to win opposition majority in parliament in 2021, displacing FDC dominance.
Of course like FDC, DP, UPC and other parties, NUP was to get the same gov’t money. They didnt resist it. They got it, although this time, NUP leaders and subordinates called it LEGAL.
They assumed the money was illegal from 2014-2021. It became legal in 2021. To this day, they actually think it’s legal although they claim to challenge it.
Luckily for NUP, in 2021, the funds were increased from 40m per each MP in parliament to 100m per year.
So EC was budgeting 100million for each MP in parliament and dispatched to the parties to support their operations.
The deal to increase the money from 40million to 100million was reached at the 2020 IPOD summit meeting at Kololo which FDC boycotted.
FDC boycotted all IPOD summit meetings for fear of Kizza Besigye because, he was strongly opposed to the purpose of IPOD meetings.
Now, after 2021, Museveni ejected DGF from Uganda and so IPOD lost its biggest funder. I don’t know who funds IPOD operations now, but by amending the Political Parties and Organisations Act (2005) to make it mandatory to attend IPOD meetings to receive public funding, its likely IPOD is now a regime funded organisation.
So, NUP should not struggle to explain their different positions on IPOD. They attacked IPOD in 2019 because they were targeting Besigye and the defunct FDC. They later joined it and benefitted from it enormously.
By the way, realistically, NUP has received more money from gov’t since 2021 than FDC received in seven years from 2014-2021 before NUP joined the IPOD table.
And, probably, NUP has received nearly the same amount of money from gov’t for the last four years as FDC has received since 2014.
Let NUP be satisfied that all parties with MPs in parliament will join IPOD. There are nolonger Ugandans today with capacity to make donations to parties like it was from 2005-15. Foreign donations too disappeared.
Explain to Ugandans that either we take IPOD money or we close the party. We will understand you. Without IPOD money, parties won’t function.
Can supporters donate to you 5.7bn you get every year? The mistake was People Power demonised the funds in 2019.
A viable alternative is for the opposition fighting Mr. Museveni regime to come with a different financing model that will not target impoverished supporters to raise the money.
The other option is to get the money and use it to fight Museveni. But Museveni knows so well that 5.7bn is insufficient to remove him from power.
But if applied well, the money can cause his regime significant damage that can lead to his downfall. Story written by Ronald Muhinda, a political activist of many years.
