I imagine many bills in Ugandan Parliament collect a lot of dust. No, not because the potholes in the streets outside the statehouse are repaired with shovel loads of dirt, but because not much seems to get done here until election time is fast approaching. However, there are two bills which have attracted the ire of Westerners and their policymakers and have also, accordingly, managed to stay pretty dust free.
The first is the infamous "Anti-Homo Bill" tabled by MP David Bahati. Aside from the usual shame-on- you's telephoned in by diplomats worldwide, several European nations have threatened to pull the plug on foreign aid, on which Uganda is heavily reliant. That is where I left you in December, but not much has changed since save one development, Mouseveni has told legislators to slow down and consider the foreign policy implications of the bill, which could be disastrous. Keep in mind: the President has a lot of sway with the NRM-packed Parliament, and he will want to make more friends than enemies in the year leading up to the 2011 elections, especially with Hilary Clinton monitoring the poll booths. . (Actually, I have personally met someone who works very closely with Mouseveni, who asserted with a sly grin after a few whiskeys, "The Bill will not pass."
The next piece of legislation is one that I haven't discussed yet, and touches on HIV/AIDS. Uganda has improved leaps and bounds in the last decade in this area, drastically reducing its prevalence rate to 5.4%. Some brilliant practitioner of the legislative arts has put forth a bill, coined the HIV Prevention and Control Bill 2009, which, among other things, criminalizes transmission of the virus. People aren't too keen on this one either. The UK doesn't like it one bit, and neither does the Human Rights Watch.
Once again, I'll keep you (blog) posted
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