By Charles Kazooba
Early February this year President Yoweri Museveni summoned all legislators from his party, the National Resistance Movement (NRM), to National Leadership Institute, Kyankwanzi for a retreat to discuss ways of rebuilding cohesion within the organization.
Museveni was wary that some people in the party had formed cliques which could disintegrate the party. The President, also the NRM Chairman wanted the legislators to iron out their differences so that the party could stand the test of time.
That retreat was also attended by legislators representing Uganda in the East African Legislative Assembly, who are members of NRM. Those regional lawmakers had their grievances, which they tabled before the Mr Museveni.
The major subject of discussion was censure of Rt Hon Margaret Zziwa, who didn’t attend the meeting but was being accused of misconduct, poor governance, poor leadership, disrespect, intimidation of EALA members and staff and loss of confidence and trust.
Some of those that attended that meeting say the President didn’t appear convinced that those legislators had a prima facie case against Zziwa. It can be said that Mr Museveni therefore never took the matter seriously.
Before that meeting with the President there was an attempt to censure Zziwa on grounds that she had arbitrarily directed that the East African Parliament stops rotating amongst partner states. But that decision had been made by the EALA Commission, and not unilaterally by the Speaker.
There has been so much infighting between the NRM lawmakers in EALA ever since Zziwa, who had the least number of votes amongst the NRM team during primaries, did the unthinkable; beating the most favourite, Byamukama, by 33 votes to 12.
Byamukama lost dramatically. That marked the beginning of deep-rooted wrangles between the NRM legislators in Arusha. The other lawmaker that had shown interest was Mike Ssebalu, who withdrew since the writing on the wall was that it was a women’s battle.
Since then cliques have been formed spearhead by the NRM legislators waiting for an opportune time to throw out Zziwa as if she wasn’t one of their own. It appears NRM has never warmed up to Zziwa as leader of the East African Parliament.
Wrangling within the East African Legislative Assembly had reached the peak with NRM lawmakers mobilizing colleagues to censure the Speaker Rt Hon Margret Zziwa.
In fact, when they met with Museveni again on March 20, they left very infuriated because the President declined listening to their “petty grudges”. Instead, Mr Museveni in that meeting demanded that next time the EALA representatives want to meet him it has to be about policy issues.
The infighting between those NRM lawmakers later on culminated into a censure motion against Zziwa, which was tabled on March 27. The motion had been signed by all representatives of Rwanda and Burundi, six from Uganda, five from Tanzania and five from Kenya.
But they have to first deal with Hon Fred Mukasa Mbidde’s petition filed in the East Africa Court of Justice.
Mbidde, in a bid to pour cold water on the ongoing campaign to kick out Zziwa, also raises more broad questions on legality of the decisions made by the regional parliament in absence of rules of procedure.
The other matter that will be coming up for contest in court is how the Assembly Commission was instituted. Mbidde says that it is the House Business Committee that by way of a motion moved by one of its members became the Commission after enactment of the Parliament Administration Act. Therefore there were no elections as should have been under normal practice.
The petition filed by Mbidde Foundation on March 20 raises issues on failure by the Assembly to adopt the rules of procedure on its first sitting.
Yet Rule 88 of the rules of procedure of EALA emphasizes that during the first sitting of the Assembly elected under the Treaty sitting as an informal meeting convened and presided over by the Clerk shall adopt the rules of procedure.
This was not done and accordingly the Assembly has no rules of procedure under which it can legally remove the Speaker who was elected at the first informal meeting.
But it also implies that all those decisions made by the Assembly at the time when technically rules of procedure didn’t exist could be declared null and void if the East African Court rules in favour of the petitioner.
Apparently, there is also a huge contradiction between the Treaty and rules of procedure adopted by the previous Assembly.
If court allows the censure of Zziwa, it will be the first time such an action happens in the setup of the East African Community.
But more importantly, Uganda will have been exposed as a partner state that lacks very solid and credible credentials of nationalism. It is unheard of that a country would just sacrifice her own people in such important positions of responsibility because of contradictions in internal politics.
Even though Zziwa’s tormentors claim Uganda would retain the Speakership after censure, there is no guarantee that contenders from other partner states would not try to grab the seat from Uganda.
This case study also gives a hint on why Uganda could have a raw deal in the East African integration process. The lack of being clear on Uganda’s interests could be a factor in determining what the Kampala government should negotiate for and how it should get it.
Ever since the death of Rt Hon Eriya Kategaya there hasn’t been a father-figure to guide Uganda on the correct path of integration. This is partly the reason a rift recently developed between the partner states and implementation of projects is based on coalition of the willing.
It is therefore important that Ugandan leaders go back to the drawing board and define their code of conduct and strategic interests.
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