Reserved Seats for Women MPs: Affirmative Action for the National Women’s Movement or the National Resistance Movement

Abstract

In February 2006 Uganda held a fourth set of national elections since a political transition two decades earlier, sending 89 women to its eighth national parliament. Within six months an additional 10 women were elected to parliament for a total 99 women out of 332 members.’ With 29.8 percent women members of parliament (MPs), Uganda ranks in the top 20 worldwide in early 2007, well above the African and world averages of 17 percent women in a lower or single house of parliament. This is an impressive accomplishment for a country that endured a series of brutal military and civilian regimes for the first 25 years of independence and ranks among the poorest in the world. Indeed, after independence from the British under a federal constitution in 1962, Uganda experienced a mere four years of relative peace before Prime Minister Milton Obote seized power from the president in 1966. Obote’s regime did not last long; in 1971 he was overthrown by army officer ldi Amin. After eight devastating years Amin was deposed by the Tanzanian army. Elections in 1980 brought Obote back to power in 1981 only to be ousted in a military coup in 1985. Meanwhile, in 1981, the National Resistance Army (NRA), led by a young former defense minister named Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, declared a liberation war for the country. In 1986 Museveni and the NRA seized power, and the army’s political wing, the National Resistance Movement (NRM), formed a new “movement” government with Museveni as president.