On 4th August 2010 Kenyans ratified a new constitution via a referendum, and they gave at least nominal support to devolution of political power in a way that isn’t really federalism but will look a lot like it.  Supporters of federo here are asking themselves whether Ugandans could accomplish the same thing.  They’re missing the point. Federalism won’t work in Uganda today for the same reason something similar just might work in Kenya: the strength of officeholders and institutions at the centre is decreasing relative to the rest of the country.  The difference is that in Kenya there are powerful challengers to the authority of the state, while in Uganda there is disaffection with the government but no real counterweight to it.

As pressure on the Kenyan government mounted, the government could have closed ranks to defend its power against honest businesses and local government, or it could have tried to buy off disaffected tribes.  In fact it did both, and failed.  The results were the riots and murders which followed the 2007 general election there. The realisation that worse violence was near and the influence of donors and international agencies finally brought home the idea that saving the state was the only way to save the power of those sitting in government.  So, the idea of devolution was resurrected.

In Uganda, by contrast, there is almost no pressure on the centre to reform. There is dissatisfaction with government among those who do not benefit directly from its largesse or who nurse historical grievances. But this doesn’t manifest as fiddle-proof election majorities or civil unrest.  Public debate is preoccupied with changing the people who run the system instead of changing the system itself.  The last experiment with giving real power to local government failed after 1993 because districts were too poor to deliver on the short term expectations of participants, leaving the centre to re-colonise the localities with increased transfer of grants and increased administrative supervision.

One reason this is so is political. Until last year Kenya had 254 districts but now has 46 because a High Court ruling in September 2009 invalidated the creation of 208 districts after 1992, claiming there was no constitutional basis for it.  The population of Kenya is about 40 million people, and its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) is about 63.5 billion dollars or 1,600 dollars per head per year.  Each of Kenya’s 46 districts can thus muster an average of around 1.4 billion dollars and 869,000 people in economic and political power.  The distribution of people and money by district isn’t uniform, and not everybody in a district is an opponent of the central government. But the point is that it was precisely this power which forced the new constitution through Kenya’s parliament in April and through the referendum in August.

It’s different here in Uganda.  Uganda has 101 districts with 10 others waiting approval, and far from pressure to limit the total there is little standing in the way of increasing it by administrative fiat.  Uganda’s population is around 33 million people, who support a GDP at PPP of about 43.2 billion dollars or 1,300 dollars per person annually.  Those 101 districts account for about 416 million dollars and 327,000 people on average in economic and political power.  That’s about one third the pressure on the centre in Uganda compared to Kenya.  When you also consider that for almost three decades the power of religious, ethnic and cultural institutions was systematically repressed here – instead of manipulated openly as in Kenya – it’s easier to see how civil society in Uganda is less able to balance the power of the state than it is in Kenya.

In conditions like that federalism can’t work.  Not for lack of enthusiasm or sophisticated proposals for reform – those are abundant – but for the lack of the right tools.  This means that the most urgent task of the Ugandan federalist isn’t the winning of an election or writing of a new constitution but economic development outside of Kampala.  Elections and constitutions are important, but they must arrive together with economic power directed to the same end if they are to be successful.  That’s the point – you need both but they have to arrive together, and in Uganda we have a long way to go before the districts can make the centre feel their muscle.

This is different than saying federalism isn’t needed.  State House is strong enough to compel Parliament to do its bidding and even to manipulate or circumvent rulings of the High Court.  In general, very strong executives in countries with weak or volatile economies are sponges.  They soak up money, people and information that could be put to better uses elsewhere because they are the only institution strong enough to ensure that it gets what it wants.  In Uganda’s case, where around 35% of the population lives in official poverty and where 80% scratches a living from subsistence agriculture, it’s fair to ask what the government has done with its monopoly of power.  There is 6.5% inflation adjusted economic growth and there are great expectations that oil revenues will push growth higher as soon as 2012.  That so little of this benefits the starving farmers of Kotido or the struggling shopkeepers of Fort Portal is a symptom that there isn’t anyone or anything outside the centre which can force government to forego the purchase of  Russian fighter jets and apply greater effort to food security and population growth problems.  A significant devolution of power similar to but more radical than the efforts of the 1993 Decentralisation Programme, plus a reorganisation of centre-local relations like a federal union, is one step in the process of making sure that development is broad-based and that its benefits are fairly distributed.  If that works, though, it will be because people in the districts have clubbed together, pooled resources and created political and economic power through their cooperation and directed it to their own, local benefit.

Michael Madill is Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Department of Historical and Policy Studies, Oakton Community College USA.  

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