Last week, one of the main funders of IPOD the Netherlands Institute of Multiparty Democracy (NIMD), said it would stop funding the forum unless the largest opposition party in Uganda, the National Unity Platform (NUP), agrees to join.
In an interview with Nile Post, the country director of NIMD who also doubles as the executive secretary of IPOD, Frank Rusa said IPOD doesn’t have the capacity to address some of the issues that were raised by NUP.
Excerpts below:
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First, what are some of the main objectives behind the formation of Inter party Organisation for Dialogue (IPOD)?
It was founded by six political parties namely; Democratic Party (DP), Conservative Party (CP), Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), Justice Forum (JEEMA), National Resistance Movement (NRM) and Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) in 2010 February.
It was created through a memorandum of understanding. These parties had gotten the idea to cooperate together because Uganda had just moved from the no party political system also known as the movement political system to a multiparty political dispensation through a referendum in 2005.
There was a need for political parties to cooperate and work together to strengthen the new multiparty system of governance, working together to develop a common understanding, what laws need to be reformed to build the country with alignment with the aspirations of multiparty democracy.
Since 2010 Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy has been offering to host the secretariat for IPOD. In this regard we help to facilitate the dialogue to make sure the dialogue between political parties is in a safe space, it is respectful and organised in professional manner in terms of agenda setting, giving ample opportunity to all parties to contribute, making sure records are weld kept, making sure there is adequate communication between the secretariat and the political parties to know the progress they are making, offering them technical advice (among others).
How has IPOD helped in shaping debate about political transition in this country because that is one of the most critical issues on the side of opposition?
That is one side of our work. There is a whole side of our work called facilitating inter party dialogue. Under inter party dialogue, dialogue has been going on two levels. One is the level of secretary generals. Every party brings in a delegation of four people and they meet at the level of secretary generals and they agree among themselves on an agenda for dialogue.
Mainly they have been focusing a lot on electoral forms, public order management act, on issues of political funding but whenever they make resolutions, they now call for an IPOD Summit for Presidents to either adopt, amend or reject them. One of the challenges we have been in the area of agenda setting is that political parties have had different interests at the dialogue table. For example, FDC has always wanted the dialogue to be about transition.
FDC thinks that a good dialogue should be about transition and nothing else but the NRM is saying ‘we need a dialogue to discuss many other issues of national development (such as) security, regional integration, working together for social economic transformation’. Not all of them agree that (they) shall be discussing the issue of transition because some people say matters of who or which (party) shall come to power and when is determined through electoral processes.
The Political Parties and Organization Act was amended to create public funding for political parties. How much was allocated for the forum?
The law is used to provide public funding for political parties, it was discussed in 2010 and then an amendment was proposed and taken to Parliament and the Political Parties and Organisation Act amended to create public funding for political parties.
Initially, it used to be Shs 10 billion but in the summit of May 2019, the IPOD leaders agreed to increase this money from Shs 10 billion to Shs 35 billion. As I speak today all political parties with the representation in Parliament get the share of this Shs 35 billion depending on numerical strength. The biggest money goes to NRM, followed by NUP. I think since this year began NUP have received up to close to Shs 5 billion.
Why is NUP getting this money and yet it does not subscribe to the forum?
When IPOD agreed on increasing the money, it was through an amendment of the law and the law says for you to get that money you have to have representation in Parliament. It doesn’t say you have to be a member of IPOD. NUP because it has members in Parliament, it is eligible under that law to get this money although it was negotiated by IPOD.
Some opposition members claimed IPOD has become a mere talking shop whose resolutions are not taken seriously by the ruling party.
When we were in the process of making this new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that issue was raised and (queried) why should we sign the new MoU before resolving the issue of the first resolution? It was decided that in the new MoU ,we should put a clause to create a resolution implementing committee. It was a new addition to the MoU that there shall be a resolution to the implementation committee which shall be given a task of making sure to follow up on implementation of the resolution before another dialogue session can be announced. Before we begin another dialogue session, there is need to first give us an update on how far you have gone with first resolution. That addition was brought to answer that problem of not following up on earlier resolutions. There was already an attempt to deal with it.
How will the withdrawal of the donors affect the progress of IPOD?
In one of the summits of the IPOD, in May 2019, there was a suggestion that IPOD requires to get public funding. There has been some discomfort why an important forum like this completely depends on donor support. The resolution was made in the IPOD Summit of 2019 that there should be public funding for IPOD. We are advising our partners and friends in IPOD to continue to find public funding for IPOD and continue this important dialogue framework because it is important for the country.
FDC claimed that it declined to renew its membership because President Museveni wanted to use the forum to manage all political parties in the country. How true is this?
That is not true. I have told you we have been facilitated by Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy which has international reputation for impartiality and neutrality. There is no way this (platform) can be used to benefit one member because we are the one facilitating and we are involved in all the processes.
Some analysts said the biggest challenge of IPOD is the dominance of NRM.What is the truth?
That is not true. IPOD is not like Parliament. In Parliament the majority can dominate because in IPOD all political parties bring four delegates. For instance, in the IPOD council, every political party brings four delegates and decision has to be by consensus. Consensus means that every member has to be agreed. This is because we didn’t want to look like Parliament where the majority dominate.
Why can’t IPOD iron out some of the issues that have severally been raised by NUP and FDC?
We the secretariat don’t have capacity to resolve the issue that NUP is raising. The issues NUP is raising have to be dealt with by to the ruling party and the only way we can arrange for them to bring these issues to the ruling party is through dialogue. We cannot work on NUP issues but we can arrange a meeting and the ruling party can respond to them. It is a technical problem.
