It isn’t that funny when an entitled politician faces his empty promise

People, voters particularly, have generally complained about politicians who make nice promises, get votes, and never meet the promises made. They repeat the routine at the next election cycle. Improbably, some get re-elected.
Using colourful language, academic Stella Nyanzi has focussed public attention on the spurious ways of politicians. Her well-chosen target is Mr Yoweri Museveni — his excellence.
She is in prison, a situation that keeps the spotlight on her challenge of President Museveni on a specific campaign promise he made: “When our daughters are in monthly periods, some parents don’t know how to help them. We are now going to provide free sanitary pads for our daughters.”

President Museveni made that promise, as reported by the New Vision, at a campaign rally at Alira Primary School in Akura Sub–county, Alebtong District, on Thursday, November 12 2015.
Mr Museveni was re-elected, one could argue, partly because of bold and sensible promises such as provision of sanitary towels to keep Uganda’s girls in school.
Daily Monitor quoted the President to have said: “I want all our daughters to attend school and remain there until they complete their studies. One of the reasons that force our daughters out of school is that when their periods start, they do not have sanitary pads. When they are in class, they soil their dresses. So they run away from school.”

In making the promise, Mr Museveni knew it would resonate with parents, who are the voters. Besides, many girl-child rights and education activists had lobbied for this sort of undertaking for years. They were thrilled.
Then the bombshell came in February 2017. The government announced it has no money to provide the sanitary kits girls need to maintain good menstrual hygiene and stay in school.
So, was Mr Museveni being a cynical politician, making a big promise he knew to be empty but was a sure vote getter?
Did presidential candidate Museveni make the big promise without a clue how it would be fulfilled i.e. funded?
Did President Museveni make the big promise knowing fully well it was too expensive to meet, and that when the time came he would simply own up, Ugandans would forgive, forget and move on like they have done on several issues before?

Dr Nyanzi refused to forget and move on. She took to social media to directly challenge the President and his government for failing to keep a promise made in “broad daylight”.
For Mr Museveni, well, this moment has long been on the way. A number of things — empty promises and botched implementation of promises met — have converged to make life a little uncomfortable up there.
Ahead of the 1996 elections, Mr Museveni promised UPE. It came in 1997. Ahead of the 2006 elections, he scrapped graduated tax. In the midst of it all, he was creating as many districts as was humanly possible even as observers were saying the new administrative entities were costly empty shells.

He also constantly, with the able help of Hajj Abdul Nadduli, begged Ugandans to make many babies. They obliged. Of course, a sizeable number of those babies would one day need education, health, sanitary towels, name it. And so the 2016 campaign season brought us the sanitary towel promise.
These programmes and policy moves are costly and yet are of the sort that it is politically suicidal for anyone to cancel or shrink them. No politician is going to scrap UPE (or go back to the original plan of educating only four children per family) and no politician will amalgamate the splintered districts.
Broke or not, the government has to keep paying for these things. They are what Americans call entitlements. Ugandans have come to expect, and indeed live with, them as a matter of right.

If you start giving poor girls sanitary pads, you will never stop because Uganda is not about to run out of poor menstruating girls. This was another entitlement on its way. Once this fact hit, Mr Museveni had to hit the escape button (and Dr Nyanzi hit the pause one). Maybe he should have done a better job explaining what on earth was going on instead of the simple, even though honest, declaration that the government has no money to keep its girls in school.
Regardless, Mr Museveni and other politicians may think twice before making promises that are not thought through, that are not backed up by a plan of fulfilment once they have pocketed the votes.

Mr Tabaire is the co-founder and director of programmes at African Centre for Media Excellence in Kampala.
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Twitter:@btabaire