The Role of Major Stakeholders in the Transition to Democracy in Uganda: A Descriptive Analysis

This paper gives a descriptive analysis of the evolution of the political governance system in Uganda which has been unique in many aspects and shows a major departure from the common governance practice in Uganda and other parts of Africa. The development of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) is placed in a historical perspective and clearly indicates the bottlenecks that existed in the past, such as centralisation of power and politicised ethnicity. The paper identifies the most important achievements of the NRM system and its reviews some of the disadvantages of the system. The roles that a wide range of actors and stakeholders play in the transition to democracy are clearly spelled out and an assessment is made of the role of political parties in Uganda and the extent to which they fulfil the linkage function between civil society and the state. The author's main conclusion is that, despite all the positive achievements, the NRM remains the single political force in Uganda; the ideal situation in which there is a `normal balance' of forces with residual institutional mechanisms has not yet been achieved. However, transformation to a pluralistic political system cannot easily occur in an environment of instability and turmoil. He therefore pleads for an interim period which allows new parties to organise and to compete with existing ones and in which they can show their popular accountability. This means that the current restrictions on the right of association need to be removed, and that, constitutionally, the right to autonomous organisation for both civil and political society needs to be guaranteed. [author]