For instance, the Uganda 1995 Constitution prohibits laws, customs, or traditions against degrading the dignity, welfare, and interests of women. The constitution also protects an affirmative action policy that has enabled significant progress in women’s representation across government.

Despite these efforts, women in Uganda still face discrimination and marginalization due to derailed changes in societal attitudes as the country’s politics and decision-making processes remain highly dominated by men.

In spite of the challenges, women have shown interest in breaking the gender barrier while making attempts to take up political seats but those who take up this initiative are ridiculed and considered immoral, badly brought up, and unruly. However, the extent to which such stereotypes, sexism, and women’s representation exist has been inadequately documented in the media. According to the GMMP report, print, radio, and TV media raised stories about women in politics and government by only 19%, based on the figure below.

Some of the challenges affecting Ugandan women intending to make a mark in politics include unequal access to education, poverty, domestic work, oppression, male dominancy, and persistent gender stereotypes, among others.

Although females and young people make up 51% and 77% of the population, respectively, they are still particularly under-represented in public positions. Notwithstanding, the country’s policy and legal commitments, there is significant inequality between women and men regarding political representation. Statistics from the Electoral Commission highlight the gender disparity in parliamentary representation as indicated in the table below.

The election results also show that the number of men elected by sex was 338 compared to women at 161, which included constituency representatives, district representatives, youth representatives, representatives of disabled persons, workers representatives, representatives of older people, and representatives of Uganda’s Peoples Defense Forces.

The number of women among the Constituency Representatives decreased from 15 to 14.

Regardless of an increase of over 300% in the number of districts over the last 20 years, the proportion of women MPs has stagnated at 30% during elections held over the period. Similarly, the party leadership of major political parties is male-dominated, based on the chart below.

More women can vie for the open seats and compete with men; however, they are always intimidated by their male counterparts. One case to note is from the just-concluded parliamentary elections where a male contestant drew a pistol at a female competitor who was said to be leading in the race.

The situation is worsened in the Ugandan community, which is highly religious with a majority of people identifying as Muslims or Christians. Interestingly, society usually quotes the Bible and Quran to justify leadership as a male domain. Furthermore, female political candidates are expected to negotiate the discriminatory attitudes and practices at a family level, which is usually denied when they request approval.

At the political party level, the seats are normally reserved for men and females are required to go an extra mile. The nomination fees are generally prohibitive, which requires a “male sponsor” to be taken seriously.

Women going for top positions

Worth noting is that women seeking political leadership have not been confined to lower positions but have in the past shown interest in the presidency. Mama Miria Obote was the first woman to run for the top office in the country in 2005. The Uganda People’s Congress flag bearer only managed to garner 0.6% of the votes cast.

In 2011, Betty Kamya sponsored by the Uganda Federal Alliance received 0.66% of the votes while in 2016 Nancy Kalembe vying as an independent candidate received 0.37% of the votes cast.

Faith Kyala, also an independent candidate, garnered 0.43% of the votes in 2016. Even though Uganda has more registered female than male voters, none of these women has managed to dislodge gender stereotypes and injustices to win presidential elections.

However, women have also received high profile appointments in government. For example, President Yoweri Museveni appointed Jessica Alupo and Robinah Nabbanja as vice-president and prime minister respectively. Notably, Alupo is the second female Vice President in Uganda after Specioza Wandera Kazibwe, who served from 1994 to 2003.

Additionally, Rebecca Kadaga also served as the speaker of Parliament for ten years while Anitah Among is currently occupying the seat. With these appointments, one can argue that the possibilities of women’s rights reform are improving in Uganda, which is a positive response to increasing women’s political representation. These appointments would inspire other women to engage in politics and aspire to high posts.

Despite the presence of women in local governments, several factors affect their effectiveness.

The majority of the women elected on affirmative action have more than one electoral area they represent. This affects their effectiveness because they do not have additional resources to responsibly represent the additional electoral areas.

Elsewhere, illiteracy levels in Uganda are also influencing women’s ability to join politics. Lack of education is known to erode the confidence of women and, ultimately, their electorate because they shy away from speaking.

The need for more women in leadership is motivated by the fact that interest for both genders varies. Women are needed in representative positions to articulate the interests of fellow women. For instance, concerning health, women pay more attention to specific issues like maternal health.

According to Elizabeth Steiner, political participation as a human right grants “citizens the right to take part, directly or through representatives, in the conduct of public affairs and government. Overall. Women’s political leadership allows them to set agendas, and, in such roles, they are made responsive to constituencies and the public.

Impact of political gender biases

These biases and gaps impact women’s ability to participate in public spaces actively and generate income and contribute to economic growth as agents of development. The government should adequately invest in efforts to address these limitations and consider several recommendations.

One option to improve involvement in politics is to fund grassroots organisations that build the capacity of women so they can participate, both individually and collectively, in social, economic, political, and public life. Additionally, there is a need to incorporate men in training to support and promote women and girls as leaders and decision-makers.

From an educational perspective, the sector should enact a gender-responsive system with several contingency plans and budgets grounded in gender analyses of roles, risks, responsibilities, and social norms. Lastly, the state can initiate plans to explore ways in which women’s representation can move beyond affirmative action, like considering a 50-50 model in all decision-making places.

Atim Charlotte.

This story was supported by Code for Africa’s http://wanadata.africa and the https://waccglobal.org/

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According to the Observer, the foot soldiers, a moniker given to NUP’s young and enthusiastic supporters who have kept at the side of Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu ever since he entered the political realm in 2017, are unhappy that the elected officials might just have used them to achieve their political ends. The elected leaders also have an axe to grind with the way the party is being [mis]managed.

In a dozen interviews conducted with leaders of the party and elected officials, each has a disagreement with the way the other is carrying out their responsibility. The elected officials mainly have an issue with the way the finances of the party are managed and how the party appoints its leaders.

“Every month we contribute one million shillings as members of parliament, even the councillors at KCCA and other district leaders pay something. But what does that money do? How about the money the party has been getting from fundraisings? Our leaders must know that a political party is a public entity that must be run transparently,” said an MP who didn’t want to disclose his name so as to speak freely.

Another Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) councilor who also asked for anonymity to speak freely wondered how the party arrives at decisions to fill vacant party positions.

“How was Alex Waiswa Mufumbiro appointed deputy party spokesperson? He is not alone, there are other positions that the party leaders have filled without explanation. But there is one common denominator with these appointments; those appointed are all loyalists of the president,” the councillor said.

However, to be fair to Kyagulanyi, the party constitution, which is currently under review by the Medard Lubega Sseggona led committee, mandates the NUP president to make most appointments in the party. Away from the way the party is managed, some elected leaders also have issues with the supporters who keep hoovering around the party headquarters in Kamwokya as if elections are still ongoing.

“We have been accused of not going to the party headquarters, but those guys have made it impossible for us to go there. The moment you step there, they assume that all their financial problems are going to be solved. They ask for all kinds of favours from us, which we are also incapable of solving because we also have constituents who are equally demanding,” another MP told us.

This sentiment was echoed by four other MPs who equally asked for anonymity in order not to stir a backlash.

“It is these guys who are fuelling propaganda against us on social media that we have been bought. Unfortunately, it seems like the party leadership is condoning their behavior. Sometimes you are tempted to think maybe what we hear these hangers-on say is actually from the leaders,” another MP said.

This is the same feeling among some supporters of the leader of the opposition in parliament Mathias Mpuuga who was attacked by the party deputy spokesperson Waiswa Mufumbiro last month. Speaking at the memorial service of Frank Ssenteza, the NUP supporter who is said to have been run over by a military truck at the peak of the presidential campaigns in December of 2020, Mufumbiro accused the parliamentary leadership of sleeping on the job while the party is bleeding.

He mentioned the continued incarceration of party MPs; Muhammad Ssegirinya and Allan Ssewanyana but saying business seems to be normal in parliament. In his reaction, Mpuuga said he would not accept being schooled by ignorant people on how to lead the opposition in times of trial like now.

“Mufumbiro is very close to party leaders, would I be wrong to assume that they are speaking through him,” an MP wondered.

In the past, Kyagulanyi has also expressed dissatisfaction with the way some leaders in parliament have quickly forgotten the reason they were elected. Speaking at the press conference recently, Kyagulanyi said their idea of accepting parliamentary leadership on the side of the opposition even when they maintain that they won the 2021 general election was to use it as a front to expand the frontiers of the struggle for change.

“We didn’t send you to parliament for individual benefit,” Kyagulanyi said.

In fact, Kyagulanyi and many of his close confidantes have also expressed dissatisfaction with the way parliament is being run. At the retreat at Kyagulanyi’s Busabala beach last week, some MPs and party officials close to him said the diplomatic way with which Mpuuga is leading the opposition is not in line with the kind of leadership that their supporters envisaged.

“Mpuuga’s style of leadership is too gentle and that is not what we are as NUP; a party of young people envisaged. Even the people who inspire us like Julius Malema don’t handle every matter in a dialogue form. With the government we are dealing with today, we must be very aggressive because this is a government that doesn’t believe in dialogue or democracy,” an MP said.

He added that giving an alternative policy agenda that is perfectly written like Mpuuga’s legislative agenda launched last year, may sound nice and appealing to the elites but it has no effect on the majority of their supporters.

“You need to have people who can jump on the tables to stop the government from bringing a bad policy because that is what these people will listen to. Mpuuga must know that most of us were not elected because we were the best orators or because we were the wisest. We were elected because people thought that we had the guts to resist the government’s bad positions no matter what. Our people voted for fighters and we must live to that expectation. Unfortunately, we the fighters are denied space because they believe we might say things that the leadership doesn’t want us to say,” the MP added.

Makindye East MP, Derrick Nyeko who admits that Mpuuga has been a good leader thus far, equally admits that moving forward; there is a need to blend activism with dialogue.

“In a system where people are fed up with the government, they probably need a team of leaders who will aggressively articulate their issues from the normal way we know it. After knowing that neither the police nor the court can provide justice, probably the best way of confronting such a state is by standing firm and fight. I think the first approach of coming up with a legislative agenda to show the people that we know where we want to take the country was the best approach. Now that the people know that we can lead, I think the next stage is to take on the aggressive part to demand that this government delivers,” Nyeko added.

He, however, was quick to add that all the decisions that have so far been taken, were arrived at collectively. For Frank Kabuye, an MP representing Kassanda South, the current animosity between the leaders and some of the supporters is a manifestation of the expectation that people have in them.

“There are some things probably our voters would want us to do at a faster pace than we are moving. That’s why some believe we have not lived to their expectations. Our supporters in the ghettos don’t want to hear about things like order, procedure, information, which we do in parliament. What they want to see is their leaders throwing tables either in parliament or on the streets to show their displeasure with the actions of the government. But we are leaders we must balance between leading and doing politics,” Kabuye said.

His thinking is in sync with that of Joyce Bagala, the shadow minister in charge of communication. Speaking to URN, Bagala, said there is no rift between the shadow cabinet and the party leadership. She however was quick to add that in every society, people will always have divergent views.

“I want to say that there is a lack of knowledge on the part of some of our supporters on how parliament functions. People who don’t sit in parliament may want us to deal with certain things in a different way, but we also believe that we should handle them in another way and that is okay,” Bagala, the Woman MP for Mityana district said.

She however appealed to party leaders who might have any issue with the way the parliamentary leadership conducts itself to reach out to them other than publicly blasting them.

“We understand that Ugandans are desperate for change; it is not that they are unhappy with us and our leadership. That’s why sometimes our people make statements that are regrettable. But there is always the right forum to address any issues with fellow leaders,” Bagala said.

Efforts to speak to Waiswa Mufumbiro or Joel Ssenyonyi, the NUP spokespersons were futile as they didn’t pick nor return our calls to their known telephone numbers. It should be recalled that where NUP finds itself is where the Forum for Democratic Change, which led the opposition for 15 years until last year when it was dethroned by NUP was.

There were some party leaders and supporters who believed in confrontational politics while others believed in building party institutions as the best method of taking on President Museveni.

The ideological differences between the institutionalists and the activists eventually led to the splitting of the party in 2018 that led to the formation of the Alliance for National Transformation (ANT) led by the immediate former FDC president, Maj Gen. Mugisha Muntu.

For now, what is not clear is whether NUP will follow FDC’s footsteps all the way and eventually lead to a split of the party will learn a lesson and change the trajectory. Only time can tell.

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