Fifty-six years ago today, the Union Jack – the flag of Great Britain was lowered and the famous black, yellow and red flag designed by the indefatigable Grace Ibingira was raised. Uganda had ended her period under the colonial master since 1894 and attained self-rule.
The deal was however that Uganda would remain under British custodianship until a democratic election was held and a president is chosen by the Ugandans themselves since Uganda had become a republic.
The elections brought an unlikely alliance between the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) and the defunct Kababa Yekka (KY) – a party of largely the Buganda, Anglican nobility – with a mission to deny Uganda’s oldest party – the Democratic Party of Benedicto Kiwanuka.
With Muntu’s New Formation and Bobi Wine’s People’s Power thought to be in a likely alliance to unseat President Museveni from power after 33 years, the post-independence alliance could offer a template for success.
This election that historians have described as “unholy” yielded fruits bringing Sir Edward Muteesa II (KY) as Uganda’s first president and Dr. Milton Obote (UPC) as the Executive Prime Minister.
As Prof. Taban Lo Liyong puts it, the KY-UPC alliance was a marriage of convenience that emanated from one mistake – the refusal of Ben Kiwanuka to kneel before the Kabaka.
“The King wanted to give him his blessing but Kiwanuka refused to kneel before him. He said he can only kneel before the Pope. He was a staunch Catholic. When the King called Obote, Obote knelt and he took the blessing,” Lo Liyong narrated.
Lessons to Muntu, Bobi Wine
The UPC – just like the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) had one year before independence, lost the first ever general election to the Democratic Party(DP) and now needed the strategic partnership of allies to avoid another defeat.
Despite their temporary success in 1963, this marriage was shortlived as both Obote and Mutesa and their following had differing agendas.
In 1964, Obote championed a bill in Parliament providing for a referendum on the belonging of the counties of Buyaga, Bugangaizi, and Buwekula then of Buganda but claimed by the neigbouring kingdom of Bunyoro. This culminated in two of the counties opting to secede from Buganda and revert back to the Bunyoro Kingdom.
As Kabaka of Buganda and President of Uganda, Sir Edward Mutesa II, was placed in an invidious position of signing the two acts pertaining to the “lost counties”.
It was upon accusations of dereliction of duty by the President, not to mention other fabricated reasons, that Obote suspended the 1962 constitution on February 22, 1966, and took over all powers of State, thus giving rise to what came to be known as the 1966 Crisis.
According to analysts, the KY, UPC alliance was not built on any ideology except to simply fail the majority Catholic DP from attaining power which has until date never happened. This discord meant that anytime, the alliance was bound to fail.
Veteran journalist, Joachim Buwembo advised Gen. Muntu and Bobi Wine to know what they both want for Uganda and themselves and find ways to synchronise them before thinking of an alliance.
“The failure of alliances in East Africa has been simply to unseat the incumbent from power. When they achieve their objective, they have no idea how to proceed and their own greed turns them against each other,” he said.
“Both UPC and KY were desperate groups without a common philosophy apart from the desire to win the elections and exclude DP from power. Both parties suffered from the issue of ownership as new entrants tried to wrestle leadership from the historicals,” Buwembo added.
He, however, was warm to the idea of a revival of the alliance – like the Jubilee Alliance which won Kenya’s 2013 elections saying it would save Uganda from the shameless coalition of imposters, thieves, tribalists, conmen, liars, and men of violence who have for almost three decades taken the good people of Uganda for a rough ride.