Patronage, clientelism and economic insecurity in Uganda

INTRODUCTION

Semi-authoritarian regimes tend to resort to a selective use of military power and patronage to establish their relationships with the masses. Because of the democratic tendencies of such regimes, they relate to the people using methods that are not outright coercive, but which are dictated by patronage. Patronage here refers to the asymmetric relationship between regimes and political parties in power, described as patrons, and group and individual political actors described as clients. Political patrons and clients get involved in an explicit or implicit quid pro quo exchange of goods and services for political support. Clientelism and patronage thus emerge, both ideologically and practically, as two complementary terms.

PATRONAGE AND CLIENTELISM IN UGANDA

In Uganda, the 1986 revolution that brought the incumbent Yoweri Museveni and the National Resistance Movement to power had promised so much regarding security, individual freedoms, equality and sustainable development across the ethnic and political divide. After almost three decades in power, the goal of remaining in power even longer has superseded all these concerns. The central government and all its arms of power are firmly under the control of the President and his ruling party. This situation has systematically created “vertical linkages of dependency and patronage” (Tripp, 2010:125) where financial and developmental resources mainly go to family members, friends and companies proxy to the system. This “state-based clientelism”, Tripp argues, “has been one of the main obstacles to democratization, especially when it has favored certain groups over others, permeated the military, and become the main source of power” (Tripp 2010:128).

Sasaoka and Nyang’oro also observe that the Museveni regime had from its initial years sought to broaden its political base “by extending patronage to, or sharing rent with,” as many groups and individuals in the country as are comfortable with the arrangement (2013: 139). “Since 2000,” they observe further, “the NRM government has dramatically increased the number of districts to enhance the NRM’s patronage networks” (2013: 143). Mwenda on his part observes that in the latter years of his almost three decades in power, President Museveni has resorted to the use of force and intimidation, on the one hand, and to the manipulation of patronage – much of it funded from abroad – on the other. As a result, Mwenda argues, Museveni has managed to strengthen the presidency and personalize the state through the control of arms and money: “The arms belong to the military and security services, which the regime deploys selectively to suppress dissent. The money sluices through a massive patronage machine that Museveni uses to recruit support, reward loyalty, and buy off actual and potential opponents.” (Mwenda, 2007: 28).

CLIENTELISM AND PATRONAGE IN THE REST OF AFRICA

On the wider African scene too, as Thomson observes, “clientelism has permeated African societies from top to bottom. It is not just a case of presidential monarchs exchanging patronage for support among their immediate lieutenants within the heart of the state. There is a whole chain of patron-client networks that spread out from this point” (2010:121). In neighboring Rwanda, for example, state patronage is one of the major post-conflict social exclusion problems. “In the circumstances in which the political arena has been dominated by the RPF, the Tutsi have had greater chances to be the beneficiaries of state service provision, including opportunities for education and employment in the sector, because of their patronage network with political leaders” (Takeuchi, 2013: 56).

In Kenya, as Kimenyi (2013) observes, patronage systems were created both by Presidents Kenyatta and Moi. By these they “were able to discriminate in favor of members of their communities for government appointments, contracts, land and the concentration of public services” (Kimenyi, 2013:164).

In Cote d’Ivoire, President Houphouet-Boigny ran a patronage system that depended on the benefit of a robust economy from independence in 1960 to his death in 1993. The system left many deep divisions between benefitting and vulnerable communities. It eventually collapsed, as Langer (2013) observes, after being undermined by the lack of further resources to service it. Daniel Posner’s detailed research on ‘Ethnicity and Ethnic Politics in Zambia’ establishes the relevance of ethnicity in post-independence Zambia by showing that ethnic group memberships underlie people’s perceptions of how patronage resources are distributed by those who enjoy access to them. The survey evidence confirms further that “almost half of Zambians think that the President’s region of the country gets more than its share of development resources” (2005:96).

In Zimbabwe, as Moyo (2015) argues, it was the patronage (White Settler) land tenure system that kept white rule in place until 1980. (1) Of recent, the remaking of ZANU(PF) powers, after what had seemed in 2008 to be an “irreversible decline”, is attributed by Zimbabwean experts to the development and maintenance of an economy of patronage (Alexander and McGregor, 2013).

The example of pre-independence Zimbabwe, just like that of white settlers in Kenya, can point to the fact that the British colonizers distributed land and other incentives based on who was loyal and supportive of their policies. This, as Mbabazi and Jun Yu (2015) argue, was clearly a patronage strategy that later became evident in post-independence politics and administration. The British are known, for example, to have admired Buganda kingdom’s well-defined political hierarchy of chiefs and followers. They went on to use the Baganda to spread their influence to the whole of the country now called Uganda. In return “the kingdom received big chunks of land, and its officials were given permission to collect taxes on behalf of the colonial government” (Mbabazi & Jun Yu, 2015:58).

The debate for a federal scheme under which autonomous, self-governing regions would have equal status was, under the circumstances, very much alive among most African pro-independence movements. At the end of the day, however, most independent African states inherited a strongly centralized apparatus at territorial level. A few countries nevertheless defied this post-independence unitary trend. They did so for various reasons including anxiety about their political status in post-colonial Africa. Nigeria is recognized as the longest enduring post-colonial federation in Africa. Africa’s largest and longest experiment has experienced periods of decline coinciding with military dictatorships. It has nevertheless managed to use federal institutions to manage cultural-territorial pluralism and conflict. The biggest challenge to the system, which is also an epitome of post-independence Nigerian history, is aptly summed up by Suberu as “the near absolute dependence of all governments in the federation on centrally collected oil revenues”… and “the proliferation of inefficient and corrupt federal subunits” (Suberu, 2006:77).

Elsewhere in the Horn of Africa, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) transformed Ethiopia from a centralized state to a new structure as a multicultural federation based on ethno-national representation. There have been setbacks to genuine multi-party democracy since the 1994 ratification of the federal constitution. Nevertheless the country has taken giant steps from the images of chronic famine that defined it in the 1980s to some enviable developmental achievements. Failures in Ethiopia’s ethnic federalism regarding the process of institutionalization and in the solving of some ethnic problems may be because, as Kymlicka argues, it “has not always been the outcome of peaceful democratic mobilization, but rather has been imposed from above and / or captured by local elites who do not present the interests of the wider group.” (Kymlicka, 2006:58). This therefore underlines the relevance of the current inquiry into grassroots perceptions on the road Uganda should take moving forward.

The South African model of federalism, which was embedded in the new post-apartheid constitution, was on its part the result of remarkably detailed and inclusive negotiations that were carried out with an acute awareness of the injustices of the country's non-democratic past. It gave the Rainbow Nation’s nine provinces considerable powers, and this was vital to ensure the acceptance of a section of minority Afrikaner opposition and Inkatha. Today it is “widely regarded as the most progressive constitution in the world, with a Bill of Rights second to none.” (2)

All in all, a federal solution has been sought in many places in Sub-Saharan Africa with the aim of achieving ethnic autonomy and equality while maintaining the unity of the state. Since the patron, in the clientelist system provides selective access to goods and opportunities, there is the inherent danger of breeding economic, and ultimately social horizontal inequalities. In Africa, where politics often revolves around ethnic cleavages, the patron/client system has more than often tended to result in ethnic tensions, political instability, and even civil wars. The cases of Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, and Rwanda, cited above, not to mention DRC Congo, Burundi, Sudan/Southern Sudan, and Uganda itself, have all had their share of violence.

The issue at hand is the fears and concerns of people at the grassroots level of the political spectrum in Uganda for their economic security in a system that selectively favors certain groups and individuals over others. These fears are partly reflected in the grassroots views from my conversations with selected samples of ordinary people in at least ten different tribal areas of Uganda. My research sought to establish the grassroots perceptions of ethnicity and federalism in Uganda. Federalism is seen in this research as recognition of Uganda’s indigenous peoples and their indigenous systems of governance. Here is what some of my respondents said:

A 60-year-old male peasant in the Bugishu area of Eastern Uganda expressed desire for a role in leadership of the traditional paramount chief in mobilizing the people to realize the full potential of their local endowments, and in the distribution of resources: “If the Umukuuka (traditional ruler of the Bagishu) were given more power, he could bring the services and employment to his people without political wrangles and intervention. Politicians don’t seem to be carrying our voices. They have too much pressure from elections.”

A 22-year old female university student from the same region, Bugishu, echoed similar sentiments: “Economically, there would be mobilization and explanation of policies. For example, now there is the case of BCU (Bugishu Cooperative Union). It is not clear who is killing it. It is possible politicians who do not have Bugishu at heart are killing it.”

A 51-year-old retrenched civil servant in Teso reflected the sentiments of many grassroots folks that local economic affairs are in the hands of the wrong people: “I think if carefully scrutinized Federo (local Ugandan term for federalism) is the solution. It will enable the base people control of local resources. It will help fight corruption. It will ensure a fair distribution of resources. There is a lot of confusion now. Sometimes money and resources are sent where nobody knows what to do. The people who know what to do don’t get the money.”

A 20-year-old female Mukiga student (from Kigezi area) echoed similar sentiments: “Like in this kind of government, if they bring a Muganda (a person from Buganda) administrator here, if we have a contract he will go and bring another Muganda to take it. But if it is our Mukiga (a person from Kigezi area), let’s say, he can employ fellow Bakiga (plural for Mukiga) and mind about the district because he can be from that particular district and knows the challenges.

So did a 32-year-old male Musoga businessman (from Busoga): “I support it (federalism) because if there were a project, I could get a tender and money stays here in Busoga and help us develop.”

A detailed but succinct summary of the above sentiments was from a 52-year, self-employed male Muganda: “Federo would be best for Uganda because people can pull together and use the resources that are common to them honestly and responsibly. Federalism is the way for Africa, not Pan-Africanism, let alone unitarianism. These are but superficial. People can have better respect and understanding of people within the same ethnic boundaries. It is feasible economically and politically because of the common resources. In 10-20 years, we are going there because unitarianism has failed: 100 years of unitary colonialism failed; 20 years of northern rule failed; 30 years of western rule have failed.”

CONCLUSION: TOWARDS ETHNIC FEDERALISM

These conversations revealed that there are people at the grassroots that see ethnic federalism as one possible way of restoring and guaranteeing both socio-political accountability and economic security in a system that relies too much on increasingly narrow ethnic and political clientelistic networks. Political competition in Uganda today revolves around both political parties and ethnic cleavages. It can be argued in conclusion that the patronage machine that sustains the ruling NRM party is as strong a potential cause of resentment and violence as is the perception that resource allocation is biased towards certain regions and individuals. A consideration of patronage and clientelism in Uganda, and elsewhere in Africa, therefore, is a consideration of the possible undesirable effects of both political and economic insecurity.

* Vick Lukwago Ssali is based at the Department of English Language and Cultures, Aichi Gakuin University, Japan.

END NOTES

(1) Sam Moyo, lecture notes: “Agrarian Transformation in Contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case of Zimbabwe”. Graduate School of Global Studies, Doshisha University, Japan, 2015/03/20.
(2) See SouthAfrica.info, a website managed by Brand South Africa (Brand SA), a public-private partnership established in 2002 to create a positive, unified brand image for South Africa – one that instils pride, promotes tourism and investment, and supports new enterprise and job creation.

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