How Much Power And Control Should Party Caucuses Have Over MPs?

25 June 2011

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OFWONO OPONDO – NRM

THERE is an on-going misplaced conspiracy and criticism against the NRM that it is misusing its parliamentary majority and caucus instead of the plenary to make key national decisions.

Sometimes these attacks are made by populist and rebellious NRM MPs. Some of these leaders are either ignorant of the NRM constitution, the Administration of Parliament Act and the parliamentary rules of procedure, which create the political caucus of the parties that are represented in Parliament.

Alternatively, their criticisms could be driven and motivated by a self-serving delusion to make NRM methods appear unconstitutional, unlawful, illegal and not warranted in a democracy. It is easy and tempting for the usual casual political observers in Uganda to castigate the NRM caucus as a selfish political tool to whittle down parliamentary autonomy and powers.

However, working with opposition caucuses and other stakeholders not in Parliament, the NRM has steered our nascent politics to great heights in a relatively short time to generate the needed consensus to move forward on many fronts and that should not be lost sight of.

Let me state that the above cited Parliament Act and rules of procedures create and recognise the multiparty political dispensation in Uganda as enshrined in the national constitution. Both documents and rules of procedures outline the mandate, authority, functions and usefulness of political party caucuses in the House.

The NRM party constitution to which every member swears to uphold, when not in contradiction with superior laws, does create the NRM parliamentary caucus under section 35 (1), whose function under sub-section (5) “shall be to consider and adopt a common position on any parliamentary business before the matter is tabled for debate in the House”.

Section 35 (6) states “When a common position has been adopted, members of the caucus shall be bound to support the adopted position in the House.”

Therefore, the NRM is right to demand total compliance with this rule from all its MPs, district and local government councillors. The NRM should not be held responsible for the weaknesses and failures of the opposition parties to have their own strong and effective caucuses.

However, exploiting some of the internal misunderstandings and failure by the NRM parliamentary caucus to enact its own transparent and effective rules of procedures, external critics like retired Supreme Court judge Prof. George William Kanyeihamba have joined the fray in support of these attacks.

Kanyeihamba and others are riding on these weaknesses to spread falsehoods and alarmism that NRM is ‘killing’ parliamentary democracy, even when they know that caucuses are effective tools of generating political consensus even in the mature democracies of the western world.

Meanwhile, the official opposition in Parliament relishes but helplessly because those criticisms alone cannot bolster their legislative and oversight function in Parliament often leaving them with subterfuge through regular walkouts and heckling as the only options available to them.

Yet, the walkouts are increasingly becoming unpopular with the public and not yielding the desired or anticipated political fortunes. With better and transparent internal rules of procedure that are currently being formulated by the NRM, there should be ample time for an exhaustive debate on most issues before being tabled in the House and as such there should be little excuse for disquiet and open rebellion from its MPs.

As the majority party, an effective NRM caucus is a remedy and not fetter to building parliamentary democracy, otherwise, we shall descend into anarchy like UPC and DP with no central logical command.

WAFULA OGUTTU – FDC

When someone decides to compete for the position of Member of Parliament on a given party ticket, he or she must be prepared to abide by the discipline and cohesion demands of that party exercised through its parliamentary caucus.

The challenge, however, is how the MP balances national interests, constituency interests, party interests and personal interests.

National interests are guided by the Constitution, constituency interests by what the MP promised to do for the voters during the campaign and party interests by the party manifesto, platform and constitution while personal interests by personal aspirations and wishes of the MP. The supreme and overriding interests are the national interests, the people’s interests and the common good.

The Constitution of Uganda and those of parties are all designed to serve the national common good. To the MP, this common good is expressed through the demands and expectations of the voters in his or her constituency. But in implementation, this common good is sometimes hijacked and subordinated to the interests of a few, usually those in power.

The MP’s mandate is that of a representative not a delegate. He or she comes to Parliament with full powers to deliberate and decide on behalf of the voters as long as he or she is satisfied that what is passed is in their interests either directly or indirectly. MPs are, therefore, sent and paid to debate, make or amend laws, oversee the Executive’s performance and appropriate funds for implementation of government programmes ensuring that his or her electorate gets a share of the national cake. This is supposed to be done on the floor of the August House, not in party caucuses or anywhere else.

The caucus should explain the issue at hand clearly to the members, spell out the party line and give them broad guidelines for the debate.

It should not gag them in the House, most especially if disagreement is obvious because the so-called party line is serving the interests of a few in power, (like protecting the corrupt or spending heavily on non-priorities) which are in conflict with the national common good, including that of his or her electorate. An MP who rebels against the party in such a situation, is damn right.

If a party’s position is for the common good, then why do you fear selling it through your members on the floor of the House? And if during the debate the other side has better ideas and a better position than yours, then why don’t you agree with them for the sake of national interest? It is only through free, objective and mature debates exhaustively conducted that we can identify and arrive at correct ideas which will move the country forward. There is no single person or party that has a monopoly of correct ideas.

Very often some members, most especially those from the ruling party are nursing selfish ambitions of getting appointed as cabinet ministers or chairs of powerful parliamentary committees. They will push the party line which they know is merely serving the interests of the powers and not national interests. Such MPs will stop serving the interests of the people, of the nation and start pushing through the caucus the interests of the President. Disaster! Such a caucus is useless.

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