With only seven months left to next year’s general election, you’d expect full-blown political activity as each party seeks to establish an edge over the others.
And now that multipartyism is here, National Delegates Conferences - gatherings of each party’s elected representatives countrywide - should be high on the agenda.

Parties are by law expected to come up with a broad party policy to be adopted by the delegates, as well as elect party leadership.
And since 2006 is an election year, the parties are also expected to come up with Presidential candidates.

How prepared?
But while all the main political parties are talking about convening a Delegates Conference each, none seems prepared and time is running out.
FDC Spokesman Wafula Oguttu says they are planning for one in September but must first hold elections from village level to districts. UPC, which had set August, did not hold one. DP has been torn up by internal bickering and has yet to come up with a plan, while NRM has set itself on October.

However, none of the parties is committing itself on a particular date, which perhaps shows that there is nothing concrete in the plans.
For example, although FDC talks of September, it is still opening up district branches. UPC Constitutional Review Commission Chairman Haji Badru Wegulo says that they are still putting up parish and sub county executives. NRM has not even started opening up branches, although it could break the rules and use the Movement structures to convene one.

Are the much talked about Delegates Conferences therefore feasible, when all the major parties are preoccupied with the immediate task of establishing party structures?
"We cannot run away from what our constitution says. As far as UPC is concerned, we have the time. That is our next step after establishing parish executives countrywide," says Hajji Wegulo. FDC's Wafula is more candid. He says: "It will be very difficult but we are looking at September."

VERY DIFFICULT TASK: Wafula Oguttu

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WARY OF GOVERNMENT: UPC’s Badru Wegulo

The process laid down in the parties' constitutions raises the stakes. For instance, the UPC constitution provides that the Conference shall be composed of the members of the National Council and members per Parliamentary Constituency. Members of the National Council (members of the Central Executive Committee and one member per Parliamentary Constituency) have all to be elected.

But first, the Parliamentary Constituency has also to be elected, which in turn elects its executive committee.
The FDC constitution provides that the Conference shall comprise of the Chairperson, four Vice Chairpersons, members of the National Council, members of the Executive Committee, members of the District Conference, representatives of all interest groups and 20 Members of the External Wing, all elected.

Time, money needed
Organising such elections takes months. As long as parties drag their feet, the conferences will be hurried and less authentic, unless they choose to bypass part of the process. Another problem is the cost. Wafula says that they are targeting at least two people per Sub-county, but the total number expected to go up to about 3000 delegates. But to organise the conference alone could cost the FDC in excess of Shs20 million.

"This is the hardest part of it. We have to organise elections right from the village level up to the district level. But funding has been a problem for most parties. Right now, we are operating on funds from membership fees, and volunteers. People fuel their own cars, and transport whoever they can," he says.

Inevitably, party activities stretch individual incomes and members have to stop at a certain point. FDC external envoy Anne Mugisha fell victim and quit in June.
But some party heads blame it on government delaying to pass the necessary transition laws, which could enable them mobilise funds. The PPOA allows political parties to source funds, but only to a certain extent.

Section 14 (1) of the Act does not permit any kind of donations "in excess of the value of five thousand currency points within any period of 12 months" in case of non-citizens, foreign governments or diplomatic missions or non Ugandan NGO registered in Uganda.

Then section 14 (2) bars political parties from accepting any funds "in excess of the value of five thousand currency points within any period of 12 months" and donations "in excess of the total value of fifty thousand in any period of 12 months."

In effect, the PPOA bars parties from seeking or accepting funds in excess of Shs100 million within any period in the year or a total of Shs1 billion in a year.

Government funding?
With barely a month or two to the conferences, parties do not have enough time to seek funds, which problem could have been solved if the Act did not place limits on the period within which to get donations.
"That's why the PPOA should be amended to make the issue of party funding easier," says Wafula.

Apart from UPC, which runs some income generating ventures, the rest rely on donations and members' contributions. World wide, there are restrictions on how parties can mobilise funds and from who. But Uganda's case is particular. Shouldn't government contribute funds to help parties organise themselves, at least in this transition period?
Section 17 (2) of the PPOA provides that Government may contribute funds towards the activities of political parties equally their registration.

Some government officials have tried to lobby for the operationalisation of this provision but this has not come to pass because government is reportedly keen on keeping the opposition parties disorganised as much as possible.

But it would prove an enormous expense if all 28 registered political parties were to be funded equally, especially since most have offices but no members to talk about. Many of these simply registered to take advantage of such generosity of the state.
Wafula says that there is a way around this problem.

"It may be difficult, some parties being only in Kampala but you can require by law that for a party to benefit, it should be able to prove its national character. It goes back to amending the PPOA," he says.

Wegulo on the other hand says that government will be acting within the law to release some funds, but is "most probably waiting for a few weeks to elections."

To G6 Coordinator Chapaa Karuhanga, such a problem could have been solved through dialogue to eliminate fringe parties, but instead Government let the problem prevail.
All this takes the country back to questions whether Uganda actually prepared well enough for the return to multiparty political system.

"In Kenya, committees were formed to prepare the country for multiparty system before elections in 1992. Nothing of the sort has been done here. We did not prepare," Karuhanga says.

vkaramagi@monitor.co.ug