Ugandan coffee farmers fall out of love with Museveni
Farmers growing Arabica coffee, one of Uganda’s main cash crops, have pushed for a change in the country's leadership by voting out all candidates from the ruling party.
By Joseph Elunya, Kampala
During the February presidential, parliamentary and local council elections, the National Resistance Movement-NRM party, headed by President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, lost in all constituencies in the coffee growing areas of Sironko.
“We appreciate what the old man [President Museveni] has done for the country but we feel the time has come for him to step down” observes Sam Magona, a farmer from Budadiri in the Sironko region.
Among those voted out is the powerful Minister for the Presidency, Beatrice Wabudeya, a close ally of President Yoweri Museveni. The President and his son in-law, Odrek Rwabogo, spent time in the constituency to canvas votes for Minister Wabudeya but she was defeated in all polling stations by Nandala Mafabi - the Chairperson of Uganda’s parliamentary accounts committee.
Meddling
Samuel Magona, a member of Buwalasi farmers’ cooperative union, faults Wabudeya for using her position as minister to wrongly advise the president to meddle in the affairs of the union. “She is not popular and has done nothing to help us for the last 15 years she has been in cabinet.”
The farmers belong to the Bugisu Cooperative Union - the only surviving cooperative society in Uganda. Other cooperative societies collapsed soon after the NRM government took over power in 1986.
Josaya Muliro, a farmer’s representative from Busano in the neighboring Mbale district, explains that the government illegally removed the entire board of governors first elected by the farmers to manage the union.
“When the government interfered in the affairs of the union by appointing a manager contrary to the 1991 cooperatives act, we had no choice but to vote out Wabudeya to show the government our displeasure” said Muliro.
He explains further that when the government came in the farmers feared to deliver their coffee to the union because they feared that government would not pay them.
Time for change
Muliro says that the farmers decided to vote out Wabudeya after learning that she was the one advising the president to meddle in the affairs of the union.
“We don’t regret our action of voting out candidates from the ruling party because we have sent out a clear signal to the government that the union belongs to the farmers and they have a right to decide who heads it”, explains Murilo.
Minister Wabudeya says the government was right to take over the management of the union because Nandala Mafabi “was using his position as chairman of Bugisu Cooperative Union to campaign against government programs."
Wabudeya says the advice she gave the government on changing the leadership of the union was for the benefit of the farmers.
Fortunes
Nandala Mafabi admits that the farmers played a leading role in his re-election bid by voting out Minister Wabudeya.
Nandala claims he has won the support of the farmers because he has revived the fortunes of the union. “I pushed the price of coffee from 0.7 euros to 2.8 euros, which made them reward me by voting out Wabudeya who did nothing for them.”
Coffee is Uganda’s leading foreign exchange earner. The country receives more than 16 million euros annually from the sale of coffee.