Uganda: Democracy

Debate between Pauline Latham and Siobhain McDonagh

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

We restart. I apologise, but I am now imposing time limits of four minutes for all speakers.

[Mrs Latham]

Thank you very much Ms McDonagh. As I was saying, I am a friend of Uganda. I have been to Uganda about 15 times and have even spent personal holidays there. I love the country and have found the people incredibly friendly.

I find the lack of democracy disturbing. The President and his troupe, so to speak, are making sure that they win the elections, which I do not believe are free and fair. As the hon. Member for Stockton South said, they go out and pay villagers to vote for them. I know that that happens. When we send observers for the election, the deals have already been done. The people feel intimidated and that they must vote for Museveni and his MPs.

I have personal experience. I have a friend who was a Member of Parliament—not when I first met him, but he became a Member of Parliament. He had to contest that election because it was done badly and it was shown in the High Court that he had won. He won the election again, but recently lost it. He is a medical doctor and since then he practices medicine privately—Museveni will not employ him because he is from the wrong party. He has been looking after the people that he used to represent in his home area for free. He has been treating them for nothing, giving them drugs and looking after what were his constituents. He has been beaten up and he has been put in prison. I have seen photographs of the beatings. The only reason he is still alive is that he managed to get himself transferred to hospital.

I have always said that people who put themselves up for election for opposition parties in countries like Uganda are incredibly brave. The worst that can happen to us in this country is that we lose an election. The worst that can happen over there is that they die. What is worse is that they die because the state is beating them, punishing them and ultimately could kill them.

We should be very careful about how we give money and the relationships we have with the Government of Uganda. I am very pleased that international development money has been reduced and we are not giving it directly to the Government, but to third party organisations. We need to monitor that extremely carefully. If we do not, the money will get into the wrong hands and will be used for the wrong reasons.

I am concerned about the whole idea of democracy in Uganda. Uganda needs to prosper and it needs a good democratic system. It should have a good democratic system, but it does not, because it is abused. Until the abuse stops, we will not be able to stop elections being rigged. That is the truth of it and there is no point in beating about the bush. The elections are genuinely rigged. The hon. Gentleman spoke about political parties not being able to meet in groups of more than three. That is ludicrous. How can there be a democratic process when people are not able to meet in groups of more than three? It is just ridiculous to have to get the state’s permission to be able to do that—and why would the state give it? It does not want big rallies.

Uganda is not like here, where we might have a church hall rally. They have huge rallies in the villages, because the only way the people can meet their candidates is to go out and see them. It is important that they do that so that they can weigh up one against the other, as happens here. That is not happening properly in Uganda anymore and we need a proper democratic system to be fair to the people there. There are so many things wrong in the Ugandan Parliament and the Ugandan system that we need to monitor them very carefully.