Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has never hidden his goal of making the East African Community a unified polity. Yet after trying and failing for the last two decades, the veteran leader is returning the agenda back on the table, seeking to influence peers in partner states to accommodate a political confederation, instead.
It is part of his to-do items as chair of the East African Community heads of state summit, the topmost decision-making organ of the eight-member bloc. Museveni took over the mantle from Kenya’s William Ruto earlier in April and seeks a united political front, as well as integrating Somalia into the Customs Union, and resolving security crises in the Democratic Republic of Congo as priority items.
Just before travelling to Dar es Salaam, this week for a two-day, August 5-6, working visit, he renewed his call for an EAC political confederation, proposing a shared military and space programme among regional states.
“On the side of defence, strategic defence, you must have political integration where possible. Not everything is possible, but where the people are the same, like those of East Africa, they are the same people,” said Museveni.
He pushed for a unified military command and single defence structure, including a joint regional navy, to protect landlocked states and fend off external interventions.
“If we have the East African Federation, we shall be able to have a navy which can defend us in the ocean, and we will be able to have a space programme,” said Museveni.
Museveni has fronted these ideas before, only to be met with subtle hurdles. Some countries in the bloc were not ready to cede ground. Others were at war with themselves. Over the years, the Ugandan leader seems to have learnt that a political federation will not be overnight. That experience may be handy now, given he is the oldest leader in power today in the bloc.
His latest agenda signals adaptability, asking members to agree on some areas while keeping their sovereignty in the meantime.
Which is why he is fronting a confederation instead of an immediate political federation, allowing flexibility and function as a gradual steppingstone that builds a regional trust and legal alignment.
“President Museveni is the champion of the regional integration on the continent and so we expect that we should do more in terms of integration and hopeful that consultations for the political federation will be completed by one or two other countries so that we can start the confederation,” Rebecca Kadaga, Uganda’s Minister for EAC Affairs, told The EastAfrican. She is also the chair of the EAC Council of Ministers.
“This is one of the major things that President Museveni would like to see during his one-year term as chairman of the EAC.”
Critics argue that the EAC political federation is an unrealistic and premature goal plagued by national nationalism, institutional failures, and a severe lack of public awareness or civic participation. In fact, they argue the EAC has struggled to attain simpler goals, such as a customs union and common market, as seen in never-ending non-tariff barriers to movement of people and goods.
Critics say that governments merely pay “lip service” to integration treaties, failing to enforce protocols or harmonise divergent legal, bureaucratic, and colonial legacies such as Anglophone vs Francophone administrative systems. There are also inherent suspicions between leaders of partner states in the bloc, delaying the political will needed to implement decisions.
“Political Federation/Confederation is a big no,” said Dr Kizito Sabala, a lecturer at the Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies (IDIS), University of Nairobi.
“Ceding sovereignty is the greatest challenge. Political federation cannot succeed with partner states ceding some level of sovereignty.”
The EAC set itself four main pillars including attaining a political federation, the fourth pillar. Others include the Customs Union (whose deadline was in 2005), Common Market protocol (2010), and the Monetary Union, whose deadline seems fluid. Countries have relatively implemented most of the tasks under the customs union and common markets, as seen in visa-free travel and common taxes on externally imported goods. Yet countries such as South Sudan have routinely imposed fees on travellers although Juba refuses to call them visa fees. South Sudan, Burundi, DRC, and Somalia have also dragged feet on cutting call roaming charges while Tanzania is only implementing the one network area arrangement.
Back on the political ambitions, a committee of experts tasked with drafting a model constitution for the EAC confederation is underway and President Museveni has instructed that the process of collecting views should be expedited.
A special committee led by former Ugandan Chief Justice Benjamin Odoki is conducting stakeholder discussions on a political confederation, before it drafts the required constitution.
The proposed EAC confederation will have its own institutions, officials, and funds.
It would deal directly with partner states rather than EAC citizens.
The confederal authority will, however, have the right to suspend or expel a member state that violates the confederal constitution.
Partner states will largely retain their national sovereignty, one official explained, providing assurance to basic fears around it.
But while the push by Museveni is strategic, Dr Sabala points out that it is likely to stall just like it has happened before.
Burundi, Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda have already completed the exercise of collecting and collating public views on what political federation they want. Tanzania, South Sudan, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo are yet to speak.
“I would like the people of EA to agitate more for political federation above all else,” said Kadaga in an exclusive interview with The EastAfrican.
“The political federation is the solution to all our problems. If we are a federation, we shall get rid of small budgets, taxes and so on. I would like to see a political federation as quickly as possible. I want to engage Somalia, Tanzania, South Sudan and later the DRC.”
Critics point to the fact that the EAC partner states fiercely protect their national autonomy and are unwilling to hand over critical controls, such as defence, foreign policy, and security, to a centralised regional authority.
Surveys, such as those by Afrobarometer polling this week, reveal that a large majority of citizens across the region have heard little to nothing about the proposed federation, showing a profound communication gap between regional policymakers and the public.
Background
In May 2017, the EAC Heads of State summit decided that a political confederation is the preferred model towards closer cooperation.
Justice Odoki said the confederation was “a slight change of policy” by the Community due to constitutional differences among Partner States, different levels of economic development, and mixed progress in the implementation of the Customs Union, Common Market and Monetary Union.
A confederation is not a federation. A confederation means a union of sovereign states in which the autonomy of members is recognised, while a federation implies a union of states in which the supremacy of the common government is the foundation.
The EAC took its first major step toward integration in 2005, forming a customs union that allows for free trade within the community and common tariffs on external trade.
The next milestone, a common market with free movement of goods, services and labor, launched in 2010.
The EAC’s ultimate goal is full federation of the eight member states – Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda – that would install a single central government with common foreign and security policies.