By Halima Athumani
KAMPALA
Lawmakers from the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) are giving cash payouts of between 5000 and 10,000 Ugandan shillings (roughly $2 to $4) to every person who attends rallies held to promote incumbent President Yoweri Museveni as the sole NRM candidate in Uganda's 2016 polls.
"We are giving each NRM legislator 4 million shillings, an equivalent of $1596, to facilitate support," NRM Deputy Chief Whip David Bahati told Anadolu Agency.
In a February caucus meeting held in the central town of Kyankwanzi, the NRM resolved that Museveni should be the sole candidate in 2016 general elections.
"Our members of parliament have to talk to the people and explain the Kyankwanzi resolution, and this requires money," Bahati said.
"Those who come to attend the rallies or meetings also have to be facilitated as we explain our objectives to the population," added the senior lawmaker.
The NRM has 216 members, which means the party has already spent some 864 million shillings (roughly $344,736) – though other sources say the amount is higher.
Bahati said the party had so far covered six of the country's 112 districts.
"This is not bribery at all; so far, we are making progress in the middle of this evaluation exercise," he insisted.
Scenes of locals scrambling for money – what would eventually be revealed as a paltry $2 each – have been shown on local television stations.
MPs were originally supposed to give 10,000 shillings (roughly $4) to each participant, but due to the large turnout, some MPs have had to cut this by half.
"I am poor, so when I heard that the MP was going to give out free money, I could not miss the chance, because I need to buy salt and paraffin," Irene Nakagolo, 70, was quoted as saying – while sitting on the verandah of the MP's office – by Uganda's Daily Monitor newspaper.
Observers say the aim of the exercise was to nip Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi's presidential ambitions in the bud.
In 2003, NRM legislators agreed to remove presidential term limits, thus giving Museveni a new lease on life as president.
Each MP received 5 million shillings to support the removal of presidential term limits, although the source of this funding was never clearly explained.
-Plundering-
A number of critics accuse the ruling party of plundering public coffers.
Olara Otunnu, leader of the opposition Uganda People's Congress, described the NRM cash handouts as "entrenched wholesale impunity and plunder of national and public resources."
Otunnu asserted that the overriding question was where Museveni was getting the cash from.
"Public resources, international donor money and money meant for hospitals and ministries are all being comingled into a personal Automatic Teller Machine for Museveni, which he can dish out as he wishes," Otunnu told AA.
"It doesn't matter what the law provides for, or which institutional procedures are in place – all of them stand for nothing," the opposition leader fumed.
"It is the most abnormal situation," he added. "As long as these things continue, it is nonsensical to speak of electoral reform."
Political analyst Julius Lebo likewise criticized the arrangement.
"The NRM has failed to separate itself from the state," he told AA. "We all know this isn't the first time they have dipped their fingers into the national coffers."
He urged the ruling party to disclose the source of the funding.
"They have never declared their source of funding," he said, adding that the ruling party was adopting an ends-justifies-the-means approach.
"With an objective that the president has to be the sole NRM candidate in 2016, how they reach there does not matter," Lebo said. "If people have to suffer or the coffers are to be emptied, so be it."
But Bahati, the NRM deputy chief whip, challenged these assertions.
"MPs contribute money to the party, but we also have friends who contribute money," he told AA.
"The money that we are putting in this exercise is purely from the party coffers," the lawmaker said. "We can never – and will never – use taxpayers' money."
Museveni has ruled Uganda since 1986. No elections were held in the first ten years of his rule.
Since 1996, he has won four elections, each of which has given him a five-year term.
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