The State of Africa by Martin Meredith

Author:Martin Meredith [Meredith, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857203892
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

In practice, Museveni’s ‘no-party’ system operated little differently from a ‘one-party’ system. Candidates supporting Museveni’s National Resistance Movement were helped at election times with government cash and cars; candidates known to favour multi-party politics faced harassment and intimidation. In 1996, in the first direct presidential elections in Uganda’s history, Museveni, using state resources, secured 75 per cent of the vote. The outcome was said by independent observers generally to reflect popular opinion at the time. But in subsequent years, Museveni became increasingly autocratic, running a patronage system favouring family members and loyal supporters and obstructing any real challenge to his rule – just like other Big Men.

Nevertheless, in the struggle for democracy there were two notable casualties. In Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda, facing demands for a multiparty system, resorted to raising the spectre of ethnic conflict and electoral violence as the reason why he should continue in sole charge. Party competition, he said, would constitute a return to ‘stone-age politics’. But popular protest, driven at first by sharp food price rises and other economic grievances, grew apace. In December 1989 the trade union leader Frederick Chiluba called for a referendum on party pluralism, pointing to events in Eastern Europe. ‘If the owners of socialism have withdrawn from the one-party system, who are Africans to continue with it?’ he asked. ‘The one-party system is open to abuse. It is not the people in power who should direct political change, but the ordinary masses.’ In June 1990 angry protestors in Lusaka set ablaze a national monument commemorating Kaunda’s role in the nationalist struggle. State-owned retail stores were singled out for looting. Demonstrators commonly blamed the one-party system for their economic plight. In July a group of trade unionists, professionals and business leaders established a ‘Movement for MultiParty Democracy’ (MMD). Kaunda tried to delay, but faced huge urban crowds chanting the opposition slogan, ‘The Hour Has Come!’

Launched as a political party in January 1991, the MMD, led by Chiluba, quickly gained mass support. Conceding multi-party elections, Kaunda used every trick in his arsenal to influence the vote. He kept a lid on maize prices, even though the cost of subsidies had reached $1.5 million a day. He refused to end the twenty-seven-year state of emergency, giving him arbitrary powers, although justification for it had long since disappeared. He refused to update voter registration lists, effectively disenfranchising thousands of potential voters thought to be opposition supporters. He authorised government resources to be used for his own’s party purposes. And he tried to block opposition access to the state media, and was thwarted only when the MMD appealed to the courts that his actions were ‘illegal, unconstitutional and discriminatory’ and won a ruling in its favour.

The result in October 1991 was an overwhelming victory for the MMD. In the presidential election Chiluba gained 76 per cent of the vote. In parliamentary elections the MMD gained 75 per cent of the vote and 125 out of 150 seats.

Kaunda accepted his defeat with grace and dignity. He escorted Chiluba on a tour around State House and gave a generous farewell speech on television.

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