Police brutality

Funding challenges

According to this view, when the public stopped seeing as much opposition party activity as expected, word spread that opposition leaders; especially Kizza Besigye have been beaten. Then speculation grew that donors were not giving opposition leaders money and that opposition parties do not have money. Being branded broke is a near fatal label in a money-based political environment. So the opposition parties are anxious to shrug it off.

Harold Kaija the Deputy Secretary General of FDC says the party has been busy but not covered in the news.

“We are not silent but perhaps are facing a media blackout,” he told The Independent, “We have been involved in a lot of activities which maybe the media has not taken interest in. We were in Adjumani for example and police interfered with us. We are not silent.”

He also disputed rumors that they are short of funds.

“There is that assumption that we have had donors who give us billions which is not true,” he said, “We have never depended on donor funds.”

The no-money-in-FDC talk has partially been spawned by widely circulated disputes between the party and one of its donor funders; the Interparty Organisation for Dialogue (IPOD). The donor has claimed publicly that FDC contravened procurement rules, inflating prices and filed forged receipts to account for money. The sums involved are quite small and the FDC has attempted to swat them away.

“Those credit queries we had are the same other parties had. IPOD was trying to use this as blackmail because of boycotting their meetings”, Kaija says.

Frank Rusa the Executive Secretary of IPOD and country representative of Netherland Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD) says what happened with FDC was a misunderstanding which is being rectified.

“We normally give some funds and implement programmes to support political parties with funding from the Democratic Governance Facility (DGF). Each political party has to make a proposal and make some procurement. FDC had a problem with their procurement,” he told The Independent.

“I don’t know how that letter we wrote to them leaked to the media. They rectified the issue and we are looking into it. We have not blocked them, it is just procedure,” he said.

A recent study on political party financing in Uganda by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), A German NGO, noted that there is a widespread perception that financing difficulties represent a significant barrier to the effective operation of political parties in Uganda.

Almost two-thirds of respondents (61%) either agreed or agreed strongly that political parties in Uganda are weak because they lack financial resources. An even higher proportion (70%) said that political parties would perform their roles more effectively if they had sufficient resources.

There is a widespread feeling that political parties are suffering from a lack of financial resources which hampers their ability to perform their democratic role.

When members of the IPOD held their summit in March this year, they resolved to increase funding of political parties with representation in Parliament from Shs10bn to Shs35bn with effect from this financial year.

IPOD Chairperson Norbert Mao said the parties agreed during the summit held on March 20 that at least 15% of the funding from the government be allocated to the IPOD Secretariat to intensify the quest for dialogue amongst political players in the country. But Museveni controls this money since it comes from the government coffers.

In any case, the FDC spokesperson, Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, announced the party is set to resume nationwide mobilisation – in other words another round of battles with the security forces.

On the other hand, Alice Alaso says the Alliance is training its leaders.

“Initially we wanted to release our leadership team to go out and mobilise but we thought they were not ready and we decided to train the team. We also had to come up with guidelines so they do not just go out “to talk and talk.” In other words, the Alliance is continuing with its quiet and peace-loving politics.

Farther afield, however, there is also a growing fear that the brutality of security forces can force political party activity underground.

“There are people who may not be able to bear the kind of situation at hand- if you push people so hard,” says Zachary Olum. According to him, young people who do not see a future for themselves may be tempted to go the underground route if the repression continues.

But he adds: “Going underground catches up with you. It is bad for the population and bad for the government. I don’t want it to happen. I am always for dialogue, people should engage each other”.

Makara agrees: “Whereas there is denial of freedom of thought, expression and assembly, it should not lead to underground organization or movement.

“Going underground is not an alternative. Parties must organise openly and freely. This is where people from other parties can attend and gauge your ideas.”

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