PARLIAMENTARY EXPERIENCES OF THE FIRST WOMAN SPEAKER OF THE UGANDAN PARLIAMENT
“MADAM, DO NOT SIT THERE, THAT SEAT IS FOR THE MINISTER” A personal account of the political and parliamentary experiences of the first woman Speaker of the Parliament of Uganda Parliament and one of the first women Ministers in Uganda.
Rt Hon. Rebecca Kadaga, MP is the Speaker of the Parliament of Uganda and a former Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians International Chairperson. She is also the CPA President Designate as the host of the 64th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference due to take place in Uganda in September 2019, which will include the 6th triennial Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians (CWP) Conference.
In 1996, after the general elections, I was appointed as a Minister of State, Regional Cooperation in the Ugandan Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I had previously been a backbencher for the period 1989 to 1995, in the National Resistance Council. The Ministry was majorly responsible for the Africa Region and the Middle East. The period in the early eighties to mid-nineties was volatile in the African Region, especially in the Great Lakes Region, the return of the Rwanda/Diaspora triggering a genocide that lasted several days, the turmoil in Burundi when an elected Head of State, Melchior Ndadaye was assassinated shortly after taking office, the instability and political upheaval after the overthrow of Mobutu Sese Seko, then President of the then Zaire (today the Democratic Republic of Congo) and the invasion by the Banyamulenge into Eastern Congo amongst many others. This kept us Ministers of Regional Cooperation on the move to different countries, where our leaders had instructed us to do some preparatory work for their summits. At the time, my colleague Ministers in charge of the region were Col. Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, Minister of Foreign Affairs, later to become President of the United Republic of Tanzania (2005 – 2015); the late Hon. Nicholas Biwott from Kenya; Hon. Kalonzo Musyoka, then a Minister, who later became VicePresident of Kenya (2008 – 2013). In late 1996, the Uganda Head of State, Mr Y. K. Museveni was due to undertake a state visit to neighboring Kenya and as the
26 | The Parliamentarian | 2019: Issue One | 100th year of publishing
Minister of State, I was sent ahead as the advance party to oversee the preparations. As Ministers, we were invited to receive the report of the Technical Committee of the two states. I walked into the room and proceeded to sit behind the Uganda Flag; then quickly a Protocol Officer from the host country rushed to me and said “Madam, do not sit there, that seat is for the Minister.” I told him that I was the Minister. Not satisfied, he walked towards the Uganda Chief of Protocol, then Stephen Nabeta, to inquire if what I had said was true. Of course, the Chief of Protocol confirmed that I was a Minister and the Head of the Uganda Delegation. He then continued looking at me suspiciously until the end of the meeting. In 1996, in the East African Region, women being Ministers was a novelty in the highly patriarchal society. At the local level, in Uganda, there had been only one other foreign Minister, Princess Elizabeth Bagaya of Tooro in the Idi Amin era in the 1970s. Therefore, my appointment was a surprise even to the people of Uganda. There was no induction for the Ministers; we were sworn in and went straight to work. The work involved a lot of reading to understand the nature of conflicts, relations, outstanding commitments, of the different states that we had to interact with. My first experience of a Cabinet sitting (then held each Wednesday) was a bit dramatic as well. I entered the Cabinet room and saw an empty seat next to the Chair of the Cabinet (the
President) and sat down. Very quickly, someone came to me and informed me that the seat was reserved for the Deputy Prime Minister and that the hierarchy required that junior Ministers sit very far from the Head’s Chair. Apparently, the sitting went according to hierarchy and seniority. Of course, no-one had guided me on this protocol! I went about my duties with gusto, both in and out of the country. I was not aware that my visibility and exposure were making some of our leaders uncomfortable. Returning from a meeting of the East African Community Council of Ministers in Arusha, Tanzania, in April 1998, we had agreed to simultaneously launch the Draft Treaty of East African Cooperation at 11.00 hours in Nairobi, Dar-es-Salaam and Kampala. As I was writing my speech for the launch in the early evening, a Cabinet reshuffle was announced. I had been transferred to the Ministry of Works as Minister of State in charge of Aviation and Transport (a hitherto non-existent portfolio). I was in a dilemma, whether to proceed with our agreed plans as Regional Minister and launch the Draft Treaty or abandon the exercise. I decided to go ahead because the launch plans had been made in the three countries. When I arrived at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the staff were equally downcast and uncomfortable and did not know how to relate to me. But we nonetheless went ahead with the launch, although my heart was not in it. Because, the portfolio to which I was transferred had no budget, no office and no staff, I had