Candidates defect to Uganda’s ruling party; Bahati rival cites safety concerns

Sometimes, politicians in the US change party affiliation (e.g., Arlen Spector’s switch from the GOP to Dem), but this is not common. In Uganda, it seems to be happening more frequently as the elections approach. This report notes that three politicians associated with the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) have either dropped out or changed parties.

President Museveni’s recent campaigns in parts of western Uganda herald doom for the opposition’s prospects of winning in an area that has previously overwhelmingly voted for the ruling party. The President last week campaigned in Bushenyi, Kisoro, Kabale, Kanungu, Buhweju, Mitooma, Rubirizi, Kiruhura and Mbarara, and while the IPC flag bearer, Dr Kizza Besigye, is yet to campaign here, the picture isn’t rosy for his coalition.

President Museveni has always convincingly won in western Uganda, but it was hoped that Besigye would make inroads in the area that is also his home.

During Museveni’s campaigns, at least three FDC parliamentary aspirants withdrew from the race, ensuring easy victory for Beatrice Rusaniya (Kiruhura district woman), Flavia Rwabuhoro (Kyegegwa woman), Atwaib Katooto (Katerera constituency), and David Bahati (Ndorwa West).

Citing concerns over his safety, Bahati’s rival, Serapio Biryaba, claimed he couldn’t continue in the race.

At a Museveni rally in Katerera, FDC’s Vereriano Tukahebwa withdrew in favour of Katooto, saying he had found it hard to canvass for Besigye’s support in the area.

“People were giving me support but I could not convince the masses to vote for Besigye. I realised that if I continued with FDC, all my programmes would not kick off,” he said.

Rusaniya also sailed through after FDC’s Dorcus Mpinda renounced her membership of the FDC at another rally in Kiruhura district.

It is not clear, nor have I heard through the grapevine why Bahati’s opponent was scared from the campaign.

Speaking of David Bahati, the author of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, here is another report regarding Bahati’s business dealings.

He is known as the young vibrant Christian legislator who proposed tough laws against homosexuality in the Ugandan parliament and he is loathed by many international human rights groups for exactly those proposals. He is David Bahati, Member of Parliament for Ndorwa West county. Yet, famous as he is for the anti-homosexuality bill, not many people knew that Bahati is also an extremely rich man who does business worth millions of dollars. That is, until the troubles of the Ugandan businessmen in Southern Sudan surfaced.

Since 2008, many Ugandan businessmen have been supplying different types of produce – mainly grain – to the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS), with the understanding that they would be paid back by the Southern Sudanese Ministry of Finance. But, so far, GOSS has defaulted on those obligations. Consequently, many Ugandan businessmen have been forced out of business. Their only recourse has been to appeal to the Ugandan government to apply diplomatic pressure to the GOSS to ensure that the businessmen are repaid for their investments. Documents show that Bahati is among these businessmen.

However, the whole affair grew more intriguing after the Ugandan Government got involved. Under an apparent agreement, the Ugandan government undertook to pay the traders and will collect the money from GOSS at a later date.

In total, record show that there are seventy-one companies and individuals owed money from GOSS, but of these, only 16 companies are said to have been paid by the Ugandan authorities. And of these 16 companies, three of them, Kalmart Enterprises, Jam Jang Company Limited and Nile Side Company Limited, belong to MP David Bahati. The three companies are reported to have been repaid $2.6 million for supplying grain to Southern Sudan by the Ugandan government.

The article then tells a story of unpaid grain transactions involving Southern Sudan and leaving some traders homeless as the result of lack of payment. To his credit, Bahati at least spoke to the Kampala Dispatch about the matter, whereas the others involved refused. Perhaps Mr. Bahati can leave his antigay efforts for awhile and help these homeless traders get their compensation.

34 thoughts on “Candidates defect to Uganda’s ruling party; Bahati rival cites safety concerns”

  1. The political situation in UG does seem confused at the moment. The issue of ‘homosexuality’ doesn’t seem to be featuring much in the election campaign, although Ssempa is trying to stir things up again, I hear (this may be less of a problem than one might suppose, as even ‘christians’ I know think he is something of an embarrassment these days).

    The Bahati Bill is still lurking in the undergrowth, of course; views are divided among the ‘political cognoscenti’ I know on whether it will be quietly shelved ‘by accident’. The sponsors of the Bill, and the chair of the relevant parliamentary committee, say that it will be considered before the end of the Eighth Parliament, as Warren has reported. One contact of mine thinks that an amended Bill could be passed by Parliament, but then ‘somehow not be signed into law’ … the point of this being to allow Parliament to ‘let off steam’ without jeopardising UG’s foreign policy.

  2. Hello ‘Maazi’!

    I’ll ‘enjoy’ your games as well – although ‘enjoy’ isn’t perhaps the right word, as your games could wreck innocent people’s lives. Mine are essentially benign.

    I am confident that everyone in Uganda is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law. So I am not sure what you mean by “wrecking innocent lives”. Even the day after the revised Bahati Bill becomes law, any individual who believes in rule of law and conforms to the letter of the law shall remain “innocent” and will have nothing to fear.

  3. Hello ‘Maazi’!

    I’ll ‘enjoy’ your games as well – although ‘enjoy’ isn’t perhaps the right word, as your games could wreck innocent people’s lives. Mine are essentially benign.

  4. The political situation in UG does seem confused at the moment. The issue of ‘homosexuality’ doesn’t seem to be featuring much in the election campaign

    Well, it never featured in previous elections. But then that did not stop the Penal Act Code of 1950 from being amended in 2000 and “same-sex marriage” from constitutional ban in 2005. I really do not see gayism as an election issue in Uganda. This is why I said in a comment in the other thread that it was “politically-safe” for the paper-light weight Colonel (Dr.) Kizza Besigye to raise the matter because he knew that the pro-gay western media will pick up his opinion on scrapping the sodomy law while the local media will not pick it since it is too engrossed on reporting important events such as the latest spat between the Ugandan State and Buganda monarchy over the “Cultural and Traditional Leaders Bill”

  5. The Bahati Bill is still lurking in the undergrowth, of course; views are divided among the ‘political cognoscenti’ I know on whether it will be quietly shelved ‘by accident’. The sponsors of the Bill, and the chair of the relevant parliamentary committee, say that it will be considered before the end of the Eighth Parliament, as Warren has reported. One contact of mine thinks that an amended Bill could be passed by Parliament, but then ‘somehow not be signed into law’

    Your Ugandan spies (eh, sorry…”contacts”) have a fertile imagination. Only time shall surely tell if your allies know what they are saying. In the meantime, I will sit back and enjoy your speculative games !!

  6. Rape (or robbery, or murder) is a very different matter, because it involves a perpetrator and a victim.

    Not every crime follows the “victim–perpetrator” pattern. A consenting man and two consenting women who engage in polygamous marriage are still guilty of the crime of bigamy in most western societies, especially in USA where Federal Law Enforcement agencies spare no effort in chasing down those who break that law. In Uganda and most of Africa, we follow a “social paradigm” or “worldview” that puts “communal rights” before “individual rights” as framed by African Charter on Human Rights through its provisions on “cultural rights”, “group rights” (also called “peoples’ rights”) and insistence that individual rights must be exercised responsibly with due regards to “common interest, security and morality”. We are not Europeans or Americans who insist on the supremacy of individuality.

  7. OK, ‘Maazi’, lets get back to the point raised earlier.

    What are your moral, philosophical and jurisprudential (as opposed to ‘cultural’) justifications for repeatedly citing a parallel between consensual sexual relations on the one hand, and, on the other hand, things like rape, robbery and murder?

    (Or, of course, you could always be honest and admit that you cite this parallel for propaganda purposes.)

  8. ‘Maazi’ – FYI: My comments are sometimes moderated as well; I suspect Warren does ‘spot checks’ periodically to make sure things don’t get ‘out of hand’. This is just ‘good housekeeping’.

  9. I think ‘Maazi’ may be trying to make a point about the importance of ‘community’. I, along with the vast majority of Americans and Europeans, would agree with him that ‘community’ is important.

    @ Wendy : You, Warren, James Onen and I all hold different views on a range of matters, but we respect our differences, and – more importantly – willingly ‘set them to one side’ in order to pursue a common cause: that of defending the human rights of LGBT Ugandans. And that’s what true ‘community’ is all about – people respecting each other’s individuality while committing themselves to work together for the common good. ‘Maazi’s’ concept of ‘community’ seems to be rather different, and has a strong whiff of coercion about it. It’s rather like the dichotomy between ‘majoritarianism’ and ‘democracy’: the former is about ‘the strong (or the [supposed] majority) calling the shots’; the latter is an attempt to provide a framework that respects both the individual human person and the need for human communities.

    ‘Maazi’ is happy with the Bahati Bill (amended to soothe his troubled conscience a little) essentially because he agrees with it. But I wonder how he would feel if Bahati proposed an Anti-Internet Bill, for example, and many UG politicians supported it? (We would, of course, support him in any fight against such a bill, our differences of opinions on other matters notwithstanding.) Interestingly, if Nsaba Buturo were to pursue his ‘anti-just-about-everything’ agenda to its logical conclusion, an Anti-Internet Bill might well be ‘necessary’ for UG!

  10. OK, ‘Maazi’, lets get back to the point raised earlier.

    What are your moral, philosophical and jurisprudential (as opposed to ‘cultural’) justifications for repeatedly citing a parallel between consensual sexual relations on the one hand, and, on the other hand, things like rape, robbery and murder?

    (Or, of course, you could always be honest and admit that you cite this parallel for propaganda purposes.)

  11. ‘Maazi’ – FYI: My comments are sometimes moderated as well; I suspect Warren does ‘spot checks’ periodically to make sure things don’t get ‘out of hand’. This is just ‘good housekeeping’.

  12. I think ‘Maazi’ may be trying to make a point about the importance of ‘community’. I, along with the vast majority of Americans and Europeans, would agree with him that ‘community’ is important.

    @ Wendy : You, Warren, James Onen and I all hold different views on a range of matters, but we respect our differences, and – more importantly – willingly ‘set them to one side’ in order to pursue a common cause: that of defending the human rights of LGBT Ugandans. And that’s what true ‘community’ is all about – people respecting each other’s individuality while committing themselves to work together for the common good. ‘Maazi’s’ concept of ‘community’ seems to be rather different, and has a strong whiff of coercion about it. It’s rather like the dichotomy between ‘majoritarianism’ and ‘democracy’: the former is about ‘the strong (or the [supposed] majority) calling the shots’; the latter is an attempt to provide a framework that respects both the individual human person and the need for human communities.

    ‘Maazi’ is happy with the Bahati Bill (amended to soothe his troubled conscience a little) essentially because he agrees with it. But I wonder how he would feel if Bahati proposed an Anti-Internet Bill, for example, and many UG politicians supported it? (We would, of course, support him in any fight against such a bill, our differences of opinions on other matters notwithstanding.) Interestingly, if Nsaba Buturo were to pursue his ‘anti-just-about-everything’ agenda to its logical conclusion, an Anti-Internet Bill might well be ‘necessary’ for UG!

  13. “We are not Europeans or Americans who insist on the supremacy of individuality.”

    No “Maazi”, you are Africans who insist on the supremacy of individuality. Brilliant.

  14. Anyway, ‘Maazi’, we’ll return to this aspect at a later stage; I must go to bed now.

    You know, I grown rather fond of you in a funny sort of way!

  15. We’ve discussed the ‘polygamy’ issue before, and at some length. Of course, you know that a man is perfectly entitled (legally) to live with several women (or vice versa), and have sexual relations with them if he chooses. He can also stipulate in his Will that all the women he lives with be provided for if he so chooses. The ‘law’ relates to marriage contracts, and those who are prosecuted under that law are generally those who ‘marry’ a second so-called ‘spouse’ without the knowledge of the legal spouse or pursuant to deceiving the authorities with regard to their marital status – i.e. it’s about deception, not consensual sex.

    Anyway, back to ‘rape etc. parallel’ beloved by homophobic nutcases everywhere (and not just in Africa). What are your moral, philosophical and jurisprudential (as opposed to ‘cultural’) justifications for continually citing this? I’d be really interested to know!

  16. Rape (or robbery, or murder) is a very different matter, because it involves a perpetrator and a victim.

    Not every crime follows the “victim–perpetrator” pattern. A consenting man and two consenting women who engage in polygamous marriage are still guilty of the crime of bigamy in most western societies, especially in USA where Federal Law Enforcement agencies spare no effort in chasing down those who break that law. In Uganda and most of Africa, we follow a “social paradigm” or “worldview” that puts “communal rights” before “individual rights” as framed by African Charter on Human Rights through its provisions on “cultural rights”, “group rights” (also called “peoples’ rights”) and insistence that individual rights must be exercised responsibly with due regards to “common interest, security and morality”. We are not Europeans or Americans who insist on the supremacy of individuality.

  17. Rape (or robbery, or murder) is a very different matter, because it involves a perpetrator and a victim.

    I am astonished that intelligent people like you still keep drawing parallels between things like rape on the one hand and, on the other hand, consensual sexual acts that both gay and straight people engage in. But there we are …

  18. What about people who know gay people, and don’t report them?

    What about those who are wrongly accused (people who like to discuss things with human rights activists on blogs, for example)?

    Well, that is why the Bahati Bill is under review. Isn’t it?

    The Bill is a jurisprudential disaster area – even ‘anti-gay’ Ugandans I talk with admit that!!!

    The above quote should only apply to the original 2009 version of the Bahati Bill. In any case, the current sodomy law is a “jurisprudential disaster” for it is largely unenforceable and therefore needs to be improved and expanded as recommended back in 2007 by several Ugandan lawyers and tabled before cabinet ministers in 2008. (This was long before Scott Lively and his Band of American Brothers rode to town).

    It’s all very well saying ‘innocent until proven guilty’, but you know as well as I do that that is not how things work in practice – people assumed those accused are guilty (the old ‘no smoke without fire’ adage).

    Well, there are several other laws which can be used to frame an innocent person, but no one says we should scrap them. In Uganda, paper-light weight politician Kizza Besigye was once accused of being a rapist. Many believed the allegations to be false and eventually the FDC man was released. But no one argues that the rape law should be scrapped due to its misuse. I could even be accused of drug trafficking and an enemy may even plant some crack cocaine in my house. Would it be wise for me to campaign for our anti-narcotics law to be scrapped for fear of it being misused? The answer is “No”.

  19. What about people who know gay people, and don’t report them?

    What about those who are wrongly accused (people who like to discuss things with human rights activists on blogs, for example)? It’s all very well saying ‘innocent until proven guilty’, but you know as well as I do that that is not how things work in practice – people assumed those accused are guilty (the old ‘no smoke without fire’ adage).

    The Bill is a jurisprudential disaster area – even ‘anti-gay’ Ugandans I talk with admit that!!!

  20. Hello ‘Maazi’!

    I’ll ‘enjoy’ your games as well – although ‘enjoy’ isn’t perhaps the right word, as your games could wreck innocent people’s lives. Mine are essentially benign.

    I am confident that everyone in Uganda is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law. So I am not sure what you mean by “wrecking innocent lives”. Even the day after the revised Bahati Bill becomes law, any individual who believes in rule of law and conforms to the letter of the law shall remain “innocent” and will have nothing to fear.

  21. I say ‘good’, because it would, in my view, be better if ‘homosexuality’ were not an election issue.

  22. The political situation in UG does seem confused at the moment. The issue of ‘homosexuality’ doesn’t seem to be featuring much in the election campaign

    Well, it never featured in previous elections. But then that did not stop the Penal Act Code of 1950 from being amended in 2000 and “same-sex marriage” from constitutional ban in 2005. I really do not see gayism as an election issue in Uganda. This is why I said in a comment in the other thread that it was “politically-safe” for the paper-light weight Colonel (Dr.) Kizza Besigye to raise the matter because he knew that the pro-gay western media will pick up his opinion on scrapping the sodomy law while the local media will not pick it since it is too engrossed on reporting important events such as the latest spat between the Ugandan State and Buganda monarchy over the “Cultural and Traditional Leaders Bill”

  23. Hello ‘Maazi’!

    I’ll ‘enjoy’ your games as well – although ‘enjoy’ isn’t perhaps the right word, as your games could wreck innocent people’s lives. Mine are essentially benign.

  24. The Bahati Bill is still lurking in the undergrowth, of course; views are divided among the ‘political cognoscenti’ I know on whether it will be quietly shelved ‘by accident’. The sponsors of the Bill, and the chair of the relevant parliamentary committee, say that it will be considered before the end of the Eighth Parliament, as Warren has reported. One contact of mine thinks that an amended Bill could be passed by Parliament, but then ‘somehow not be signed into law’

    Your Ugandan spies (eh, sorry…”contacts”) have a fertile imagination. Only time shall surely tell if your allies know what they are saying. In the meantime, I will sit back and enjoy your speculative games !!

  25. The political situation in UG does seem confused at the moment. The issue of ‘homosexuality’ doesn’t seem to be featuring much in the election campaign, although Ssempa is trying to stir things up again, I hear (this may be less of a problem than one might suppose, as even ‘christians’ I know think he is something of an embarrassment these days).

    The Bahati Bill is still lurking in the undergrowth, of course; views are divided among the ‘political cognoscenti’ I know on whether it will be quietly shelved ‘by accident’. The sponsors of the Bill, and the chair of the relevant parliamentary committee, say that it will be considered before the end of the Eighth Parliament, as Warren has reported. One contact of mine thinks that an amended Bill could be passed by Parliament, but then ‘somehow not be signed into law’ … the point of this being to allow Parliament to ‘let off steam’ without jeopardising UG’s foreign policy.

  26. “We are not Europeans or Americans who insist on the supremacy of individuality.”

    No “Maazi”, you are Africans who insist on the supremacy of individuality. Brilliant.

  27. Anyway, ‘Maazi’, we’ll return to this aspect at a later stage; I must go to bed now.

    You know, I grown rather fond of you in a funny sort of way!

  28. We’ve discussed the ‘polygamy’ issue before, and at some length. Of course, you know that a man is perfectly entitled (legally) to live with several women (or vice versa), and have sexual relations with them if he chooses. He can also stipulate in his Will that all the women he lives with be provided for if he so chooses. The ‘law’ relates to marriage contracts, and those who are prosecuted under that law are generally those who ‘marry’ a second so-called ‘spouse’ without the knowledge of the legal spouse or pursuant to deceiving the authorities with regard to their marital status – i.e. it’s about deception, not consensual sex.

    Anyway, back to ‘rape etc. parallel’ beloved by homophobic nutcases everywhere (and not just in Africa). What are your moral, philosophical and jurisprudential (as opposed to ‘cultural’) justifications for continually citing this? I’d be really interested to know!

  29. Rape (or robbery, or murder) is a very different matter, because it involves a perpetrator and a victim.

    I am astonished that intelligent people like you still keep drawing parallels between things like rape on the one hand and, on the other hand, consensual sexual acts that both gay and straight people engage in. But there we are …

  30. What about people who know gay people, and don’t report them?

    What about those who are wrongly accused (people who like to discuss things with human rights activists on blogs, for example)?

    Well, that is why the Bahati Bill is under review. Isn’t it?

    The Bill is a jurisprudential disaster area – even ‘anti-gay’ Ugandans I talk with admit that!!!

    The above quote should only apply to the original 2009 version of the Bahati Bill. In any case, the current sodomy law is a “jurisprudential disaster” for it is largely unenforceable and therefore needs to be improved and expanded as recommended back in 2007 by several Ugandan lawyers and tabled before cabinet ministers in 2008. (This was long before Scott Lively and his Band of American Brothers rode to town).

    It’s all very well saying ‘innocent until proven guilty’, but you know as well as I do that that is not how things work in practice – people assumed those accused are guilty (the old ‘no smoke without fire’ adage).

    Well, there are several other laws which can be used to frame an innocent person, but no one says we should scrap them. In Uganda, paper-light weight politician Kizza Besigye was once accused of being a rapist. Many believed the allegations to be false and eventually the FDC man was released. But no one argues that the rape law should be scrapped due to its misuse. I could even be accused of drug trafficking and an enemy may even plant some crack cocaine in my house. Would it be wise for me to campaign for our anti-narcotics law to be scrapped for fear of it being misused? The answer is “No”.

  31. What about people who know gay people, and don’t report them?

    What about those who are wrongly accused (people who like to discuss things with human rights activists on blogs, for example)? It’s all very well saying ‘innocent until proven guilty’, but you know as well as I do that that is not how things work in practice – people assumed those accused are guilty (the old ‘no smoke without fire’ adage).

    The Bill is a jurisprudential disaster area – even ‘anti-gay’ Ugandans I talk with admit that!!!

  32. I say ‘good’, because it would, in my view, be better if ‘homosexuality’ were not an election issue.

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