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Women Marginalisation in Parliamentary Politics. A glance at NCC application forms

By Jacqueline Namukasa, Department of History, Archaeology and Heritage Studies, Makerere University

Uganda Times, November 1979

This research was undertaken with an interest in women representation on the National Consultative Council (NCC) – the body created by the Moshi Conference in March 1979 as the basis of the transitional government that would take over in the wake of Amin’s fall.     However, I discovered with surprise that the NCC created at Moshi had not a single woman among its 30 members squad1 . And even when the NCC was expanded in October 1979, to be more inclusive and representative (especially by including those who had not moved to exile) only one female representative emerged out of 61 elected members2 . Mrs. Rhoda Kalema from Kampala District was the only successful candidate. By 15th April 1980, the NCC had a total of only two women representatives out of the 123 members. The other representative was Hon. Geraldine Namirembe Bitamazire, who equally served as the Education Minister. The level of representation on the NCC was therefore negligible – especially when compared to the 35 percent women representation in Uganda’s parliament by 2011.  That percentage in the same year placed Uganda in sixteenth position, globally in that respect3 . How and why was this the case? 

The NCC was the supreme legislative and policy-making organ of the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF).  This interim legislature became operational from the 11th April, 1979 after the overthrow of Idi Amin’s regime.  It continued in existence after the removal of Godfrey Binaisa on 12th May 1980 by Paulo Muwanga’s headed Military Commission, though it became largely irrelevant. It was officially dissolved on Friday, November 7, 1980, in advance of the December 10, 1980 controversial general elections4 .

Looking at the NCC enlargement process helps to explain why women representatives were so few.  Although we cannot tell from the available records how many women applied, the limited sample of forms that are preserved in the Uganda National Archives suggest that very few applied.  Essentially, the legislative recruitment procedure as witnessed in the application form that interested applicants submitted in September 1979 raises eyebrows. It contained a series of aspects that inevitably disadvantaged women and made it hard for them to apply, as elaborated below.

Besides the usual bio-data, the form was interested in the occupation, previous and current employers, then asked if the applicant had ever been imprisoned. The form required details of schools attended from primary to university level, and applicants had to further state their political and other related activities prior to the liberation: whether they supported the Uganda National Liberation Front and its policies, how they felt about the UNLF’s business since liberation, its most notable successes and how it could improve. The form asked for names of three references and their current addresses, and a detailed statement about explaining in details why one needed to become a member of the Consultative Council – as well as other questions5 .

This form was designed about a particular idea that focused on men. In fact, because the UNLF leadership comprised of highly educated men, they automatically had it as a requirement for the applicants to have attained education up to university level. This was an indirect way of resuming the self-interested operating style of having a legislature of the highly educated as had been the case in the 1960s. The need for referees and their addresses was another way of eliminating new entrants – effectively, additional members from the districts had to be nominated by original NCC members. No wonder that the non- representation of women apparent in cabinet and NCC membership after the overthrow of Amin on the 11th April 1979 persisted in the expanded national assembly from October 1979. Moreover, this whole procedure echoed the idea that political representation should be the work of “men of substance”- a phase that became very prevalent in the vocabulary of the Lusaka delegates upon their return from the Moshi conference in late March 1979 (Avirgan & Honey, 1982). The requirement of one’s adherence to the UNLF principles was another indication that there would be no room to accommodate divergent ideas in leadership – despite the preached democracy of the day.  

Although the 1970s and early 1980s violence that swept Uganda had inflicted a heavy toll on women with economic hardships that women and children faced right from their homes, it is also clear that there were influential DP women leaders at the time like Mrs Teresa Kakoza, Miss Kate Kataliwa, Mrs Florence Buzabo and Specioza Wandera6 .

Additionally, were UPC notables like Gertrude Njuba, Betty Bigombe and Janat Mukwaya, among others. Perhaps these women never expressed their interests in joining the NCC because they did not accept the UNLF ideology of stifling multi-party politics. Perhaps they were also excluded because they had not played a direct role in the liberation struggle. The majority of those in exile anti-Amin movements – who were also Moshi key players – were men, and applicants were expected to have played a role these liberation movements. Even male politicians who had not fought, or at least been prominent in exile politics, were vulnerable to criticism. This was clearly reflected by Avirgan and Honey (1982) when they stated that it was hardly surprising that after Yusuf Lule was removed from the presidency in June 1979. At the time, the Uganda National Liberation Army itself issued a statement that he had played no part in the liberation of Uganda from Idi Amin’s regime (Ibid.:199).

UNLF members’ rhetoric did envisage changing women’s position in society, yet patriarchal nature of their politics was short of a structured approach and commitment to create space for women’s opinions. This seems to confirm the argument of Asimwe-Mwesige (2006) and Tamale – that regardless of what political system is in control, when Ugandan women lift the veil off the face of the state, they see nothing but traditional patriarchal mind-sets of male privilege and power embedded therein.    

Uganda Times October 1983

Secondly, women’s marginalization in the NCC also resulted from the colonial Legacy.  According to Tamale (1999) the introduction of colonial rule fundamentally deepened gender inequality because of its capitalism. The fact that women used not to be paid for their productive and reproductive labour considerably lowered their status to that of men in a patriarchal Ugandan society. 

Moreover, the colonial policy on education further affected women’s position in Uganda.  Missionary education provided at prestigious all-girls schools such as Gayaza High, among others was primarily geared towards providing educated men with good wives and home makers (Tripp, 2000, Tamale, 1999).  Such training not only denied women the intellectual skills to participate in the western system of politics but also introduced new gender roles that in turn radically altered the gender ideology. Therefore, the UNLF big-shots (politicians) perpetuated as the assumption that women were marginal in the decision- making processes.  

 All in all, in light of the nationalist spirit at Moshi, it is clear that the politicians who had come together to create the UNLF government at the time were playing a politics of unity that focused on themselves as an educated male elite.  They attempted to accommodate each others’ interests and their vision of unity and inclusion was one that offered no space to women as representatives. UNLF leaders their utmost duty to promote and consolidate the unity of the people of Uganda and were focused on an elusive quest for an inclusive elite bargain of competing political forces divided along ethnic and ideological lines of Monarchists, DP Centrists, radical Marxists and pro UPC/Obote’s forces. This, limited idea of ‘unity’ overshadowed the gender-equality and inclusive approaches that were necessary to ensure women empowerment in the NCC legislature.  

References

Asimwe-Mwesige, Women’s Experiences in the Transition from Movement System to Multi-Party System of Governance, Briefing Paper 2006. 

Avirgan, T & Honey, M. (1982) War in Uganda: The Legacy of Idi Amin, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania Publishing House pg.199.

Tamale, S (1999), When Hens begin to crow: Gender and Parliamentary Politics in Contemporary Uganda, Kampala: Fountain Publishers 

  1. See the National Assembly Report of 6th June 1979. []
  2. See Results of Consultative Council election, LDO 32444, Kampala Domestic Service in English 1700 GMT & A Letter REF: NO.CM/162/1 3rd October 1979 at the Uganda National Archives. []
  3. UNDP Report on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Public Administration, Uganda Case Study, 2011. []
  4. Mugabe, F., “Pressure from the Executive Forces Speaker Waibale to resign”, Daily Monitor Monday 5th March 2018. []
  5. Uganda National Achieves, Collection: Office of the President, File Name U.N.C.C Hoima District Passes Only: Application forms for Membership and Candidature to National Consultative Council, Ref. no C/NCC/8. []
  6. DP Women answer Karamoja SoS, Uganda times, Saturday, August 2, 1980 Vol.1 No. 322 p.1. []