• Home
• About UDFed
• Manifesto
• Events
• Gallery
• Contact

Contents of the UDFed Manifesto:

PREAMBLE

INTRODUCTION

Mission

General Guiding Principles

(1) Democracy
(2) Federalism
(3) Economy
An Overview
Economic Plan
UDF economic mission
Guiding Principles
Sectoral breakdown
Domestic policy...

Foreign Relations

General policy making process

The Options for Political change:
(a) The negotiated path:
(b) Liberation path:

 

UGANDA DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION

April 3, 2010

PREAMBLE

WE, citizens of Uganda, come together at a critical moment in the history of our country to answer the call to defend liberty, the constitution and the country once described as the pearl of Africa.

WHERE AS Uganda has suffered, in the last five decades, from political instability and economic mismanagement at the hands of dictators who abused power, detained political opponents, murdered citizens and deprived them of their property;

CONCERNED that the flagrant abrogation of constitutions, amendments of constitution for selfish interests, corruption, institutional decay, intolerance of political pluralism, election malpractice, vote rigging and tax evasion have become internalized political values in Uganda;

CONVINCED that the transition to democracy has been slow-walked, the rule of law has been frustrated and the regime continues to employ patronage, terror, bribery, ethnic fragmentation, tribalism and nepotism to sustain itself in power;

RECOGNISING that governments are instituted among humans to protect their rights and freedoms, and create an environment that empowers all citizens, whatever their ethnic background or station in society, to pursue all the opportunities in education, employment, entrepreneurship and political leadership;

COMMITTED to return sovereignty to the people, a system of governance that respects the will of the majority of the people, a government committed to the defense of all citizens, and a government that promotes good relations with other nations;

DETERMINED to rid Uganda of the most corrupt regime since independence that rides and feeds on the back of a poor population like parasites;

DO HEREBY constitute ourselves into the Uganda Democratic Federation (UDF), a political organization, to mobilize our fellow Ugandans and friends of Uganda to bring change in Uganda which will establish true democracy, security, peace, prosperity and to do any such activities as will accelerate the attainment of that objective.

INTRODUCTION

After 24 years of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) government, Uganda groans under the thumb of a dictatorship that abuses power by harassment, intimidation, detention on sedition, treason and terrorism charges. The government has put restrictions on political party activities, the media and civil society which have prevented these institutions from organizing and building their capacity to promote and protect democracy.

President Museveni, his relatives, friends and military officials spare no expense to indulge their wild abandon, while citizens toil under the threat of violence, the prospect of prison and the anxiety of diminishing access to health and other primary services. For many Ugandans, in spite of a good education, the opportunities for employment are continuously becoming scarce because of sectarianism, cronyism, and nepotism.

For more than two decades the Luwero Triangle that nursed and suckled the NRM in infancy, still lies in ruins after the war, as residents continue to beg for the compensation that never comes. For two decades citizens in the northern parts of Uganda, especially Acholi, have been the targets of personal and cultural humiliation in a military conflict that has turned military commanders into millionaires.

Two million citizens have been caught between the brutality of Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the indifference of a government that considers them social undesirables! Or, as Kajabago Karushoke, chief ideologist of NRM would say: “biological substances.” For two decades the conflicts, disease and starvation in Acholi created a terrible conveyor belt that fed Ugandan citizens into the jaws of death.

The NRM government has hamstrung the Kingdom of Buganda by illegally detaining her subjects without cause and impoverishing those that contributed to her wealth, closing her radio station, restricting her income, grabbing her land, encumbering her assets and fragmenting her multi-ethnic identity. 30 people were killed on September 9-12, 2009 when they took to the streets to demonstrate against the dictatorship that had prevented their king, the Kabaka of Buganda, from visiting one of the counties of his Kingdom.

As he worried about the illegally imprisoned “subjects”, Kabaka Muwenda Mutebi felt the warm breath on the back of his neck as the dictatorship “ordered” him to apologize for the deaths of 30 demonstrators and the property damage that occurred during the uprisings.

Chief among the many failures of this government is the inability to conduct free and fair elections, supposedly a reason for the birth of the NRM revolution in the early 1980s. Shortly after the rigged elections of 1980, NRM led by Yoweri Kaguta Museveni waged a war ostensibly to break the cycle of insecurity, decay, deprivation and economic stagnation that had afflicted Uganda since independence in 1962.

NRM deplored the constant harassment of citizens through detention, torture and violence as a means of settling political problems.
One of the main reasons that led to Uganda’s political problems, according to NRM, was the reliance on ethnicity and religion in decision-making at the expense of development needs.

NRM promised a fundamental change to establish peace, democracy and a modern industrialized economy. Looked at together, the Ten-Point Program, political education programs and official speeches, made it clear that NRM meant to establish a structural, institutional and civil society framework that would bring stability and prosperity. There was a recognition that the success of institutions depended on public servants who would forgo self-enrichment at the expense of the country

The NRM government continues to employ repressive laws to silence critics and political rivals in spite of the constitutional guarantees. Journalists get arrested and prosecuted for “statements likely to promote feelings of ill-will, hostility, or bring a person (usually the President of Uganda) into hatred, contempt or excite disaffection against the government”.

Laws on subversion, “treason”, terrorism and sectarianism are principally aimed at protecting a regime which equates criticism of its policies to subversion.

Corruption, which has reached epidemic proportions in Uganda, threatens to deter potential investors and inhibit entrepreneurial initiative. Most of the effects of this epidemic are manifested in the poor service delivery.

Public enterprises were sold on the cheap to NRM officials. Private enterprises are required to set aside, for free, a portion of their stock for NRM officials.

Land grabbing and natural resource mismanagement have brought poverty, environmental disasters, food shortage and unsustainable agriculture.

The failure to develop and maintain transport, communication and energy infrastructures has hindered commerce, industrial development and overall economic progress.

President Museveni has an over-bearing influence on the legislature, judiciary, bureaucracy, military, security forces and all institutions of accountability.

Individuals in these institutions are influenced by two powerful forces; fear for those who would promote change, and personal fortune for those who would impede change processes. The effectiveness of institutions does not depend on their independence, but unfortunately, their “legitimacy” in the eyes of stakeholders is based on their proximity to the executive.

The people in the institutions of Parliament, bureaucracy, law enforcement and the judiciary whose desire to amass fortunes and retain their jobs has made them enablers in the decomposition of the body politic. The misery seems to have no end in sight!!
In spite of the promises for a fundamental change, NRM`s primary focus is the retention of power, and the exercise of power to attain personal ends. The latent capacity for change could assume a violent form if the opportunities for peaceful political engagement continue to be rare.

Ideally, citizens use structures, institutions and civil society to bring about the social changes they seek. We have examined opportunities available and the challenges that confront those who seek change in Uganda in the “drivers of change” framework. Our analysis leads us to the inescapable conclusion that while there is enough constitutional frame-work on paper, there is not enough individual liberty and political freedom to enhance the ability, capacity and capability of individuals and groups to use the democratic processes to realize change.
Museveni believes that he is endowed with extra-ordinary talents and a singular vision for Uganda, East Africa and possibly all of Africa. He sees himself as the “great leader” standing at the pinnacle of power bravely confronting the challenges of a backward country with a population too dim-witted to fathom the enormity of these challenges. All levers of power and instruments of state must be available to him in order to steer the ship of state through the perils of an unstable sea. Only he knows the destination and the wheel can not change hands.

Mission

The UDF mission is to build a free, stable and prosperous democratic federal republic of Uganda at peace with other nations.

General Guiding Principles:  

Empowering citizens to shape their futures on three key stones:
     (i) democracy
    (ii) federalism
    (iii) private sector-driven economy.    

 (1) Democracy: Institutionalizing political freedom.

While we accept that democracy must reflect the country’s political, social, and cultural life, we also insist that the test for democracy rests upon fundamental principles, not uniform practices. The fundamental principles are both normative and structural.
The norms include:
(i) rule of law
(ii) sovereignty of the people
(iii) individual liberty (freedom of thought, expression, assembly and association)
(iv) political freedom.

The structural component includes:
(i) separation of powers
(ii) degree of decentralization of political authority
(iii) democratization of political processes.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) sets certain standards to which all signatory governments have to adhere. On June 21, 1995, Uganda acceded to the ICCPR without reservations, therefore the government is obligated to respect and protect the internationally recognized human rights contained there-in. The 1995 Constitution of the Republic of Uganda guarantees the fundamental rights and freedoms including: freedom of thought, expression, assembly and association. The Uganda Human Rights Commission is part of the institutional framework designed to promote and protect these rights and freedoms which are so critical to democracy.

UDF shall remove the very serious contradictions that confront Ugandan citizens whereby, on one hand the constitution guarantees certain rights and freedoms, and on other, repressive regimes charge citizens with sedition, subversion, treason, sectarianism and terrorism when they exercise those rights and freedoms.

The sovereignty of the people should not only be invoked in worthless referenda, this principle has to be invoked and protected by the courts when citizens criticize and demand accountability from their government.

The laws which independent Uganda inherited from the colonial masters, whose legislative intent was to give protection to the colonial government over the political freedoms of the citizens, have no place in a democratic country. UDF shall seek to abolish them.

UDF shall strengthen the structures and institutions of democracy in Uganda, by encouraging and supporting them to grow and develop their capacities to be effective spheres to safeguard democracy.

(2) Federalism: Promoting self-determination

When diverse groups of free people with different languages and cultural norms choose to live under an agreed constitutional frame-work, they have to expect a degree of local autonomy. Federalism is a system of government in which a written constitution divides power between a central government and regional or sub-regional governments.
Both types of government act directly upon the people through their officials and laws. Both types of government are supreme within their proper sphere of authority with the virtue of retaining local pride, traditions and power, while allowing a central government to handle common problems.
One of the ways of breaking the vicious circle of corruption and dictatorship is to adopt a federal system of government whose basic units are autonomous and self-governing. These basic units are constitutionally insulated and placed beyond the control of the central government.

UDF recognizes that Federalism is an essential component of the democratizing process through vertical devolution of political authority.
This involves the:
(a) lawful limits of political authority at different levels;
(b) administration that implements political policies.

The success of the system rests on the total devolution of these powers from the central government to create autonomous political entities at regional and local levels. This arrangement offers the checks and balance of legitimate political action and helps to restrain the potential abuse of power.

NRM has constantly resisted the devolution of political authority to lower levels which federalism offers. Instead, schemes like “decentralization” and regional tier are being sold as substitutes for federalism. UDF will not preside over a system where local governments are mere agents of the central government without being able to exercise political power.

UDF will install a federal system in Uganda to return government accountability to the people, encourage citizen participation and promote civic responsibility by allowing governments to design and administer local laws.

(3) Economy: Empowering citizens to achieve prosperity

An Overview of Uganda’s economy.
Since 1986, the NRM government has acted to rehabilitate and stabilize the economy by undertaking currency reforms and other policies aimed at boosting production and export earnings. For a long time the Ugandan government has been pursuing an aggressive free-market policy whose target is that by 2025 a certain level of economic transformation will be attained. It is expected that at some point, the country’s natural resources and labor, and the amount of manufactured goods and services will raise enough income through self and wage employment to eliminate poverty. Better incomes are said to be the only way to ensure social welfare, our leaders argue, and therefore all the focus has to be on the creation of the necessary macro-economic environment for private sector investment.
There has been a turn around in the economy since 1986. Significant reforms have been adopted and the financial sector has become more open. However, credit is still unavailable to facilitate investment in the key sectors and access to credit is even worse in rural areas where most of the population resides and toils. While reforms have occurred, regulation and bureaucracy are non-transparent, inconsistent, and subject to corruption. Corruption remains pervasive and is the most serious impediment to advancing Uganda’s overall economic progress.

The NRM government loves to describe the country as an economic star, but can not explain why, for such a brilliant performance, the country has miserable social-welfare conditions; the biting poverty among citizens and persistently high maternal and infant mortality rates of 510 per 100,000 and 64.82 per 1,000 respectively. (2009 EST.)
The government economic success narrative hides the sad welfare realities or understates the scarcity of social services such as health services. The poor citizens through out the country find it increasingly difficult to access social services, and whatever services are available are becoming less complete and of poorer quality.
As a result of war and disease, millions of orphans have no social support; the community and family safety nets are overstretched or have broken down.
The statistical figures in the government story do not capture the non-monetary aspects of poverty such as powerlessness, social exclusion and hopelessness which have been on the rise.
When a multi-dimensional concept of poverty is used, where deprivation in terms of health, nutrition and educational standards are taken as seriously as low income, the picture is gloomier.
The current economic strategy that sacrifices human life and undermines the welfare of the indigenous population is flawed and immoral. This strategy can breed a combustible political situation which might lead to unrests and instability.

Economic Plan:

Even a free enterprise system contains some governmental supervision. The government must establish basic institutional rules, such as contract law. The courts must play an important role of defining the appropriate constitutional limit of governmental interference with market driven decision making, and oversee institutions that regulate the competitive process.
UDF intends to pursue an economic policy with a strong social development component, recognizing that even the donor countries that embrace a free-enterprise approach to economic management have welfare of their people as their focus, and they manipulate economic control variables (inflation rate, interest rate, public debt and money supply) to ensure they have an optimum balance between social welfare and economic growth.
As we sit down with our development partners, we must be confident in the pursuit of this balanced economic strategy because, among other reasons, the IMF and the World Bank agreed to consider poverty and the social impact of major reforms in their lending programs to poor countries in August 2000.

UDF economic mission

The mission shall be to achieve high economic growth rates with rising household incomes; gender equity; increasing access to health services and education; a stable ecosystem; access to safe water and sanitation for all citizens.

Guiding Principles on the economy

Sectoral breakdown

(a) Agriculture: UDF shall:

(i)Promote labor saving technology to increase cropped area.
(ii) Make high-yielding, disease and drought resistant seed/plants  available to farmers;
(iii) Promote efficient pasture management.
(iv) Build physical structures to guard against weather conditions during storage.
(v) Develop agro-processing facilities to extend the “shelf life” of agricultural commodities.

(b) Make credit available in key sectors of the economy with keen attention to improving productivity. For example loans could be - attached to the purchase of ploughs, tractor and any such labor saving technologies.

(c) Improve the marketing structure and pursue strategies that will penetrate regional and world markets for Uganda’s goods.

(f) Energy: The Ugandan economy can not be transformed from a backward  
subsistence economy to a modern industrialized economy without a sound energy policy.

Insufficient power supply has led to:

UDF intends to supply the political will to confront this epidemic by:

Domestic policy making structure:

Federalism is one of the key stones on which a free, stable and prosperous Uganda shall be built; it means therefore that some of the policy formulation will be done at regional levels. Agricultural policy formulation offers a good example.
Uganda has five distinct farming systems/areas defined by rainfall patterns and soil characteristics (World Bank, 1993A, page 13)

FOREIGN RELATIONS

The gross violation of human rights by the Museveni regime has not spared neighbors in the great lakes region. Uganda, in the last two decades, has had military tensions or violent wars with Kenya, Sudan, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
UDF shall stop the NRM foreign policy of constant interventionism and the flagrant use of military forces on looting errands into other countries. UDF shall pursue a foreign policy that will:

This process begins with a vision and inspiration from the top national leadership. The vision is then operationalized in a policy-making environment characterized by socio-political innovation in governance, institutionalization of democracy, open society and free press. Within this environment interest groups such as donors, businesses, pressure groups offer input. Policy analysts, researchers and technocrats provide the data and expertise. This approach to policy making is meant to bring objectivity, impartiality and professionalism to policy-making. It is also meant to reduce corruption and sectarianism in national policy development.

The foregoing UDF political objectives can not be achieved under the current conditions in Uganda. We therefore present options that can facilitate our country’s journey to true freedom, democracy, peace and economic prosperity.  We offer the following options as vehicles that can deliver us from the existing tyranny.

The Options for Political change

(a) The negotiated path:

This would involve negotiations between the NRM organization and other political parties and civil society to make the necessary constitutional and legislative reforms to institutionalize freedom. This path must allow the parties to organize campaigns and participate in free and fair elections. For this course to be sustained, outside engagement is critical through diplomatic influence and aid conditionality. There are challenges related to the coordination, bilateral interests and the strengths of the channels of influence that have to be delicately navigated. The risks for the diplomatic missions and the Aid agencies that engage a recalcitrant regime are enormous. All these efforts have to be combined with mitigation strategies to massage the process of transition.

The biggest challenge to overcome if the “negotiated path” is to be adopted is the radical dichotomy of the views held by the NRM leadership and those who seek change. Those who seek change believe that political restrictions are obstacles to peace, democratic governance and economic progress, while NRM leadership believes that the restrictions are essential for peace and security.

(b) Liberation path:

If the exercise of political freedom is resisted by the use of draconian laws, intimidation and outright violence against citizens by the NRM regime, then the path of rebellion and uprising in arms shall be the only option left for Ugandans to liberate and govern themselves freely.
By fundamental law, every person has a right to use force in the defense of his person, liberty and property; it is this power that we delegate to government, for its use, almost exclusively against those who might choose to break the established law. Although, this right is impliedly granted to government, it cannot be assumed that citizens give up themselves to the arbitrary power and will of a dictator to make prey of them as he pleases.

UDF believes that this right is a reversionary right which can be reclaimed by the citizens if the government uses it offensively against them.