Joram Jojo
How ought Ugandans organise themselves politically today?
Uganda anarchist looks inside Political Wankers
The problem of the instrument of government entails questions of the following kind. What form should the exercise of authority assume? How ought ugandans to organise themselves politically in the modern world? Do politicians care about the suffering especially in northern Uganda?
The conflict in northern Uganda is the result of the failure to resolve this problem of authority. It has clearly become more serious with the transtion to “multparty democray that power has been put before the plight of our brothers and sisters in northern uganda.
The populace today face this persistent question in new and pressing ways. Ugandans are exposed to the risks of uncertainty, and suffer the grave consequences of wrong answers. Yet none has succeeded in answering it conclusively and democratically. THE All political systems in the Uganda today is a product of the struggle for power between alternative instruments of government. This struggle is pathetic, as is evidenced among NRM-O, FDC, UPC, DP and individuals. The outcome will be the victory of a particular governing structure — be it that of an individual, group, party or class — and the defeat of the people in northern uganda; the defeat of genuine democracy and Justice.
Political struggle that will result in the victory of a candidate with, for example, 51 per cent of the votes will lead to a dictatorial governing body in the guise of a false democracy, since 49 per cent of the electorate are likely to be ruled by an instrument of government they did not vote for, but which has been imposed upon them. Such is dictatorship.Besides, this political conflict may produce a governing body that represents only a minority mainly from western Uganda. For when votes are distributed among several candidates, though one polls more than any other, the sum of the votes received by those who received fewer votes might well constitute an overwhelming majority. However, the candidate with fewer votes will win and his success will be regarded as legitimate and democratic! In actual fact, dictatorship is established under the cover of false democracy. This is the reality of the political systems prevailing in Uganda today. They are dictatorial systems and it is evident that they falsify genuine democracy.
PARLIAMENTS
Parliament is the backbone of that conventional democracy prevailing in Uganda today — they preach to us. Parliament is a misrepresentation of the people, and parliamentary systems are a false solution to the problem of democracy. A parliament is originally founded to represent the people, but this in itself is undemocratic as democracy means the authority of the people and not an authority acting on their behalf. The mere existence of a parliament means the absence of the people. True democracy exists only through the direct participation of the people, and not through the activity of their representatives. Uganda Parliament has been a legal barrier between the people in north and the exercise of authority in the south, excluding the masses from meaningful politics and monopolising sovereignty in their place. People have been left with only a facade of a democracy, manifested in long queues to cast their election ballots and ques for handouts in concentration camps.
To lay bare the character of parliamentarians, one has to examine their origin. They are either elected from constituencies, a party, or a coalition of parties(G-6), or are appointed(NRM). But all of these procedures are undemocratic, for dividing the population into tribal constituencies means that one member of parliament represents thousands, hundreds of thousands. It also means that a member keeps few popular organisational links with the electors since he, like other members, is considered a representative of the whole people. This is what the prevailing traditional democracy requires.
The masses are completely isolated from the representative and they, in turn, are totally removed from them. Immediately after winning the electors’ votes the representative takes over the people’s sovereignty and acts on their behalf. The prevailing traditional democracy endows the member of parliament with a sacredness and immunity which are denied to the rest of the people. Uganda Parliament, therefore, has become a means of plundering and usurping the authority of the people. It is the right of Ugandans to struggle, through popular revolution, to destroy such instruments — the so-called parliamentary democracy which usurp democracy and sovereignty, and which stifle the will of the people. The masses have the right to proclaim reverberantly the new principle: no representation in lieu of the people.
If parliament is formed from one party(NRM-O) as a result of its winning an election, it becomes a parliament of wankers and not of the people. It represents the party and not the people, and the executive power of the parliament becomes that of the best wankers and not of the people. The same is true of the parliament of proportional representation in which each party holds a number of seats proportional to their success in the popular vote.
The members of the parliament represent their respective parties and not the people, and the power established by such a coalition is the power of the combined parties and not that of the people. Under such systems, Wanainchi are the victims whose votes are vied for by exploitative competing factions who dupe the people into political circuses that are outwardly noisy and frantic, but inwardly powerless and irrelevant. Alternatively, the people are seduced into standing in long, apathetic, silent queues to cast their ballots in the same way that they throw toilet paper in the toilet. This is the traditional democracy prevalent in Uganda, whether it is represented by a one-party(NRM), two-party(UPC-KY), multiparty(G-6) or non-party system. Thus it is clear that representation is a fraud.
Moreover, since the system of elected parliaments is based on propaganda to win votes, it is a demagogic system in the real sense of the word. Votes can be bought and falsified. Poor people are unable to compete in the election campaigns, and the result is that only the rich get elected. Assemblies constituted by appointment or hereditary succession(Museveni’s / Obote’s son) do not fall under any form of democracy.
Thinkers, and writers advocated the theory of representative parliaments at a time when people were unconsciously herded like goats by kabaka and colonialists. The ultimate aspiration of the people of those times was to have someone to represent them before such rulers. When even this aspiration was rejected, people waged bitter and protracted struggle to attain that goal.
After the successful establishment of the age of the republics and the beginning of the era of the masses, it is unthinkable that democracy should mean the electing of only a few representatives to act on behalf of 2 million people living in Museveni’s concentration camps. This is an obsolete structure. Authority must be in the hands of all of the people. The most tyrannical dictatorship Uganda has existed under the aegis of NRM parliament.
THE PARTY
The party is a contemporary form of dictatorship. It is the modern instrument of dictatorial government. The party is the rule of a part over the whole. As a party is not an individual, it creates a superficial democracy by establishing assemblies, committees, and propaganda through its members. The party is not a democratic instrument because it is composed only of those people who have common interests, a common perception or a shared culture; or those who belong to the same region or share the same belief. They form a party to achieve their ends, impose their will, or extend the dominion of their beliefs, values, and interests to the society as a whole. A party’s aim is to achieve power under the pretext of carrying out its program. Democratically, none of these parties should govern a whole people who constitute a diversity of interests, ideas, temperaments,regions and beliefs. The party is a dictatorial instrument of government that enables those with common outlooks or interests to rule the people as a whole. Within the community, the party represents a minority.
The purpose of forming a party is to create an instrument to rule the people, i.e., to rule over non-members of the party. The party is, fundamentally, based on an arbitrary authoritarian concept — the domination of the members of the party over the rest of the people. The party presupposes that its accession to power is the way to attain its ends, and assumes that its objectives are also those of the people. This is the theory justifying party dictatorship, and is the basis of any dictatorship. No matter how many parties exist, the theory remains valid.
The existence of many parties intensifies the struggle for power, and this results in the neglect of any achievements for the people and of any socially beneficial plans. Such actions are presented as a justification to undermine the position of the ruling party so that an opposing party can replace it. The parties very seldom resort to arms in their struggle but, rather, denounce and denigrate the actions of each other. This is a battle which is inevitably waged at the expense of the higher, vital interests of the society. Some, if not all, of those higher interests will fall prey to the struggle for power between instruments of government, for the destruction of those interests supports the opposition in their argument against the ruling party or parties. In order to rule, the opposition party has to defeat the existing instrument of government.
To do so, the opposition must minimize the government’s achievements and cast doubt on its plans, even though those plans may be beneficial to the society. Consequently, the interests and programs of the society become the victims of the parties’ struggle for power. Such struggle is, therefore, politically, socially, and economically destructive to the society, despite the fact that it creates political activity.
Thus, the struggle results in the victory of another instrument of government; the fall of one party, and the rise of another. It is, in fact, a defeat for the people, i.e., a defeat for democracy. Furthermore, parties can be bribed and corrupted either from inside or outside.(Ask DP & UPC)
Originally, the party is formed ostensibly to represent the people. Subsequently, the party leadership becomes representative of the membership, and the leader represents the party elite. It becomes clear that this partisan game is a deceitful farce based on a false form of democracy. It has a selfish authoritarian character based on maneuvres, intrigues and political games. This confirms the fact that the party system is a modern instrument of dictatorship. The party system is an outright, unconvincing dictatorship, (Obote & Semogerere have headed their parties 20+ years)one which the world has not yet surpassed. It is, in fact, the dictatorship of the modern age.
The parliament of the winning party is indeed a parliament of the party, for the executive power formed by this parliament is the power of the party over the people. Party power, which is supposedly for the good of the whole people, is actually the arch-enemy of a fraction of the people, namely, the opposition party or parties and their supporters. The opposition is, therefore, not a popular check on the ruling party but, rather, is itself opportunistically seeking to replace the ruling party. According to modern democracy, the legitimate check on the ruling party is the parliament, the majority of whose members are from that ruling party. That is to say, control is in the hands of the ruling party, and power is in the hands of the controlling party. Thus the deception, falseness and invalidity of the political theories dominant in the world today become obvious. From these emerge contemporary conventional democracy.“The party represents a segment of the people, but the sovereignty of the people is indivisible.”
“The party allegedly governs on behalf of the people, but in reality the true principle of democracy is based upon the notion that there can be no representation in lieu of the people.”
The party system is the modern equivalent of the tribal or sectarian system. A society governed by one party is similar to one which is governed by one tribe or one sect. The party, as shown, represents the perception of a certain group of people, or the interests of one group in society, or one belief, or one region. Such a party is a minority compared with the whole people, just as the tribe and the sect are. The minority has narrow, common sectarian interests and beliefs, from which a common outlook is formed. Only the blood-relationship distinguishes a tribe from a party, and, indeed, a tribe might also be the basis for the foundation of a party. There is no difference between party struggle and tribal or sectarian struggles for power. Just as tribal and sectarian rule is politically unacceptable and inappropriate, likewise the rule under a party system. Both follow the same path and lead to the same end.The negative and destructive effects of the tribal or sectarian struggle on society is identical to the negative and destructive effects of the party struggle.
Uganda Political parties are built on a foundation of wankers!
LET’S SHARPEN THOSE WEAPONS FOR A TRUE REVOLUTION!