At the beginning of last week, Erias Lukwago lost his seat
as the Lord Mayor of Kampala following his impeachment by the city council.
This was the culmination of two and a half years of uneasy
peace at city hall during which time Lukwago protested the ceremonial role
allowed him according to a new law, which created the Kampala Capital City
Authority (KCCA). Under the new law the everyday running of the city was turned
over to the KCCA executive director. Jennifer Musisi is the KCCA boss.
The drama inside and outside the council hall will probably
be the highlight of the day’s proceedings but what was lost on many people is
that the institutions of democracy and governance – the courts, the police, the
council, were once again tested. Whether they passed the test only time will
tell, the benefits are that whatever happened, happened and will inform
processes going into the future.
We may have wondered at minster of the presidency Frank
Tumwebaze’s timing of the impeachment process. Our jaws hit the floor at the
kamikaze jump of councillor Alan Sewanyana over his colleagues to get to the centre
of the hall in the heat of proceedings. We were left aghast at how Lukwago’s
lawyer Abdallah Kiwanuka was stripped to within an inch of his underwear and
bundled unceremoniously onto a police pick up. We may have been silenced by the
near unanimous decision to eject Lukwago 29-to3 with two abstentions and the
question of the interim injunction by the high court stopping the impeachment
vote lingers.
Lukwago has 21 days from Monday to appeal the decision in
the high court.
The government’s critics lament the high handedness of its
agents, the perceived sneakiness of the impeachment process and are quick to
prophesy doom for this nation in the future as long as the NRM stays in power.
The Government’s supporters on the other hand may go around
with smug smiles, engage in congratulatory back slapping and toast to the
apparent vanquishing of one of the opposition’s leading lights.
In the zero sum game that is politics, these reactions are
unsurprising.
For the rest of us mere mortals it is within our rights to
take one side or the other, however if we are to take a step back and look
dispassionately at the events that led up to Monday’s circus, we may see a
silver lining on this dark cloud.
Democracy cannot be written or copy-and-pasted or imposed on
one people or another. The basic freedoms that form the principles of democracy
may remain constant but the institutions that underpin the observance of these
develop according to the context in which they are situated. So whereas the US
and Canada, bordering states, are democracies they are not identical. Similarly
France and Germany. Or Sweden and Denmark.
The differences come from their own unique evolutionary
political paths, driven by the interaction between various political forces, at
varying times and with varying ferocity.
Seen against this light, the events leading up to and
surrounding Monday’s events are but a single step in the long march to
democracy.
The process can be helped along by Lukwago and his team
appealing the process and laying his fate at the feet of the high court and by
the government participating in the process, allowing its actions to be
examined.
Like it or not a process was set in motion at independence,
the turbulent 70s and 80s while not the best of times, have served to colour
our view of the democracy we want. So too do events unfolding before our eyes.
Human nature is such that all progress only comes from
resolution of disagreements or contradictions. Politicians who are in the
business of acquiring power and holding on to it, never relinquish their
advantage out of the goodness of their hearts but often through compulsion.
There will be more muscle flexing in future and that is as
it should be. We may see movement towards or away from greater democracy but in
the greater scheme of things, if it is any consolation to the battered bodies
and bruised egos of the contesting
politicians, it’s all for the greater good.
