Party’s want more money from govt

A global problem

Public political party financing is increasingly being acknowledged in several states worldwide as an essential framework for nurturing political parties as fundamental blocks of multiparty democracy.

Competitive elections require considerable sums of money. Candidates and political parties need money to print election materials and organise meetings, among other things.

The debate of funding politics is a global one, including in the established western democracies like the USA and UK.

In the UK, the government gives regular subventions to political parties. The parties, however, also raise their own resources from members and from the wider private sector.

In both USA and UK, financing of the political parties remains a dilemma. There are questions of patronage, access to contract awards and undue influence to policy generation. There are now Acts of parliaments to regulate registration and funding of political parties in many democracies in the west.

In the case of developing countries, there are concerns that developed countries and big multinational companies could subvert states through political party funding.

There are both formal and informal mechanisms used by developed countries in Europe and America to assist funding development of parties in poor developing countries.

Domestic funding of politics

Much as multi-party democracy was re-introduced in Uganda in 2005, political parties face a number of challenges one of them being access to finances to carry out their political activities. Save for the ruling NRM party which is suspected of drawing from national coffers, other political parties struggle financially.

Opposition legislators say that political parties are stranded over lack of financing for their 2021 election campaigns.

In August 2020, while flagging off the distribution of 68,000 yellow bicycles to NRM chairpersons at the village level, President Yoweri Museveni revealed that Government would commit at least Shs30 billion in increased funding for political parties.

The Political Parties and Organisations Act provides that government shall contribute funds or other public resources towards the activities of political parties or organisations represented in parliament. Parliament currently has five political parties of NRM, FDC, UPC, JEEMA and DP with representation in parliament.

Government started funding political parties with representation in parliament in the 2014/15 financial year, contributing up to Shs10 billion every year.

It was a positive step when compared to earlier elections in the 1960s and the 1980 elections when every party and individuals raised their own electoral resources without any significant state help.

When the Museveni government organised the first general elections in 1996 and 2001 under the no-party Movement Political System , there was some form of electoral funding; at least for presidential candidates who were each given, out of state funding, the following facilities: A brand-new four-wheel drive vehicle (returnable after the campaign), state security, and a cash subvention of Shs8 million.
The candidates were by law required to provide returns as to how much money they had spent in the campaigns and they were barred from obtaining funding from states believed to be hostile to Uganda.

This arrangement continued in the 2006 and 2011 elections but cash was not given in 2016 elections as the electoral laws had changed.

Under both the amended Electoral Commission Act and the Political Parties and Organisations Act, parties are required to file annual returns with the Political Parties Registration Desk at the Electoral Commission. However, this requirement, which attracts a harsh penalty of deregistration, is hardly complied with and where it is, no effort to verify the accounts is made.

In 2015 ahead of the 2016 elections, the Electoral Commission released Shs10 billion for political parties. Out of this money the ruling NRM walked away with the lion’s share of Shs8.2 billion followed by the Forum for Democratic Change, which received Shs1.4 billion, UPC got Shs309 million, DP Shs464 million and the Justice Party (Jeema) and the Conservative Party each Shs30.9 million. The same scenario is likely to play out in regards to the sharing of Shs15 billion.

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