What will influence 2011 voter?

The dark reality of our politics is that it is not good policies that win elections. It is the money, catchy slogans, empty promises, party attachment, personality traits, and sadly, even sometimes tribal sentiments.

On the contrary, in an ideal democracy, the popularity of any presidential candidate mainly depends on his or her policies and rating, particularly on the economy, security, corruption, poverty, unemployment and general service delivery.
Even so, in the paradox of our democracy, manifestos are simply campaign “hooks”, containing “ideals” and generalities with “quick-fix” pledges. Unfortunately, in Uganda just like in other countries, manifestos only serve in getting people to vote for a certain candidate.

Often, election promises are easily broken — a major cause of voters’ indifference and poor service delivery.
Dr Yasin Olum, a senior lecturer at Makerere University’s Department of Political Science and Public Administration seems to agree with other analysts on one thing: it’s our collective responsibility to educate the voters that it’s not too late to spurn this reality of our politics — focusing on issues as presidential campaigns heat up.

Voters’ needs
“Other countries have moved on because during their elections, voters tie personalities with issues at stake. This is what voters need to do in order to have right leaders in public offices,” Dr Olum said. “Capable leaders will put in place the right systems and policies that would outlive personalities.

“They will be committed to service delivery, issues of good governance, the well-being of the economy, poverty reduction and there will be significant progress in the country.”

Dr Olum emphasises that elections must be about issues affecting the country and that a leader with the best answers and policies on how to address the problems affecting the voters should always be supported.
“People need to care about how they are governed and they should have a stake in every process. Therefore, issues of the economy and politics go together and can’t be separated,” he said.

“People need to know what is going on in politics and should question their leaders and demand answers. For instance, who was consulted before the lifting of presidential term limits [in 2005]?”

However, in a country where the vast majority of the voters are poor and illiterate, their voting decisions normally depend on what they hear. For the rural poor, justice, good governance, rule of law, press freedom, human rights and macro-economic policies are distant and intangible things. To them, it’s commodity prices, peace and stability that matter. In their world, it’s better to be poor in peaceful time than to have ‘opulence’ in wartime.

Even though political analysts believe that there is a connection between people’s feelings towards the issues at hand and their voting preference, it is not clear to what extent Ugandans in this election are willing to drop other influences and vote according to issues in the Citizen’s Manifesto.
2011 promises
Eight presidential candidates are competing for the highest office in the land. These include the incumbent President Yoweri Museveni of the National Resistance Movement (NRM); Inter-Party Cooperation (IPC) candidate Dr Kizza Besigye, who also heads the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), Dr Olara Otunnu of the Uganda Peoples Congress and Norbert Mao of the Democratic Party (DP).

Others are Ms Beti O. Kamya of Uganda Federal Alliance (UFA), Former Local Government Minister Jaberi Bidandi-Ssali of the People’s Progress Party (PPP), Dr Abedi Bwanika of People’s Development Party’s (PDP) and Mr Sam Lubega, a member of a faction of the DP, but running as the only independent candidate.

Dr Besigye has promised to deal with corruption, ensure economic growth, raise salaries for teachers and medical workers, heavily invest in agriculture, develop infrastructure, lower interest rates, change the tax regime, create jobs, provide quality and relevant education as well as revamp the health sector.

To achieve this, the IPC candidate intends to change Uganda’s taxation system so that the rich are taxed more than the poor to reduce income inequality.

Service delivery
President Museveni in his 2011 campaign manifesto titled: “Poised for take-off, enhancing service delivery and job creation” intends to build on the current peace, security, “unity” free education policy and prosperity for all campaign to deal with poverty and unemployment in the country.

Like Dr Besigye, President Museveni, Mr Otunnu and Mr Lubega, DP’s Mao promised to deal with poverty and corruption. In addition to zero-tolerance on corruption and equitable distribution of government jobs, Mao promises to give greater autonomy to sub-national governments through federalism including Buganda, promote and respect cultural institutions and traditional leaders.

Ms Kamya has promised Buganda a federal status, a trademark of her campaign. PPP’s Mr Bidandi-Ssali promised to reinstate term limits in the Constitution as Dr Bwanika promises to cut cabinet’s size to only 30 ministers in order to reduce “wastage”. Mr Bwanika has also promised free healthcare for pregnant women and the elderly.

While each candidate has put issues on “table”, it’s of the essence that Ugandans choose a candidate with the best chance of replacing tribalism with national unity, poverty with prosperity, high crime with security, unemployment with job creation, corruption with accountability, potholes with better infrastructure among other issues.

In other democracies, elections are an opportunity for political parties to appeal to voters by campaigning on the issues that concern their daily bread. Similarly, voters have an opportunity to hold their leaders accountable and shape public policy by choosing parties or leaders that reflect wider public opinion.

Museveni & taxi debate
On October 25, the same day President Museveni was cleared to contest for a fourth elective term, I happened to be among the passengers in a taxi No. UAL 141L. It was the same day his political nemesis and former ally, Dr Besigye among others was also nominated. In the taxi, a heated “political quarrel” on Museveni’s achievements for the last 25 years in power ensued.

I listened with a lot of interest as a group of women in their mid 30s praised Mr Museveni for ensuring stability and appealed to others in the taxi to vote for him. They also praised the president for what they called “democracy” in the country.

At the back of the taxi, there were three men in their mid 20s who accused the women of being insensitive to the issues affecting the ordinary people and accused Museveni of “arm-twisting” the Kabaka, closing Buganda’s CBS radio and doing little to reduce sugar and fuel prices.” CBS radio has since been re-opened.
As debate gained momentum, two men in the front seat sarcastically supported the “yellow women” and praised Museveni for his free education policy and peace in northern Uganda but faulted him on Kampala potholes, endemic corruption, poverty and widespread unemployment.

“President Museveni has done well on security and free education. We now have peace in the country but we cannot eat peace. We need food, but we can’t get it because of corruption, nepotism and lack of jobs. It’s Museveni to blame, tatuyambye ffe abawansi” one of the passengers said in Luganda, meaning—“the president has not helped the downtrodden”.

In the end, they failed to agree, but there was consensus on one thing: Not even the opposition can address poverty and unemployment, if nothing is done to curb the widespread corruption among public officials. The two sides also agreed that Museveni had done well on peace and security and failed to punish the corrupt in his government. Listening to this taxi conversation, it became apparent that in spite of everything, some Ugandans care about the issues that might influence their choice on February 18 when Ugandans go to vote for the president. Again, from the taxi exchange, it became apparent that some Ugandans don’t care about what other candidates have brought on table as long as they see peace in Museveni.

Election issues
Dr Fred Golooba-Mutebi, a research fellow at Makerere University Institute of Social Research (MISR) hopes voters will settle for “real issues” affecting the country and nothing less. Dr Golooba highlighted unemployment, poverty and corruption as the major concerns troubling Ugandans.

“The country is pessimistic about poverty levels, unemployment, and corruption in government, the state of the national economy, poor roads and the poor service delivery.

“These problems cut across the country and in this coming election, the voters should demand for corrective measures,” Dr Golooba said.

“We would like to hear from all the eight presidential aspirants how they intend to deal with these challenges and not how the NRM has failed. By focusing on issues at hand, this will make this election meaningful to the people. Even the incumbent president should be held accountable on the promises made in his 2006 election manifesto. Likewise, the opposition must also show that their plan for Uganda by focusing on real issues.”
Regional politics
While poverty and unemployment remains endemic in various parts of the country, statistics from the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) indicate that the problem is more severe in Northern and Eastern parts of the country compared to Central and Western region.

Northern Uganda, a region that suffered two decades of civil strife as a result of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel activities still has the highest number of poor people at 46.2 per cent, which is higher than the national average of about 30 per cent.

Eastern Uganda ranked second, with 24.2 per cent of the people living in absolute poverty after a decline from 35.9 per cent in 2005/2006. Western Uganda, poverty stands at 18.2 per cent, faintly down from 20.5 per cent.

Apart from poverty and unemployment, healthcare, agriculture, infrastructure and the quality of education among other issues are likely to dominate the presidential campaigns in all the major four areas.

The issue of disarmament and the peace process in the volatile Karamoja sub-region where the army is facing accusations of human rights violations will also influence the voters.

Central region (Buganda) has the lowest poverty levels at 9.7 per cent. This is a decline from 16.4 per cent in 2005/2006 when the first survey was last carried out.

However, experts have questioned these figures after it emerged that data was collected from only 80 districts out of the current 112 districts. There is a school of thought that poverty could be higher in Buganda just like in northern and eastern parts of the country due to a high number of the jobless youth.

Buganda, the region with the largest number of voters, remains a “hot potato” in this presidential race. The politics of love-and-hate has over the years characterised the Buganda-Central government relationship.

In this election, the issue of federalism, land, agriculture, healthcare, good governance, human rights abuses, poverty and unemployment among others remain key in Buganda’s politics.

Analysts say all these issues in Buganda might be addressed by a candidate who would answer the Buganda question. This candidate will be voted for in Buganda.

Who is a voter?
Details from UBOS contained in the document titled: “Projections of Demographic Trends in Uganda 2007-2017” indicate that as of 2010, eligible voters, aged 18-25 years stand at 6.4 million, 25-30 years (2.4 million) 30-35 years (1.9 million) 35-40 years (1.4 million), 40-45 years (1.1 million), 45+ years, (2.8 million).
The Electoral Commission has, however, released a provisional register with 13,954,129 (thirteen million, nine hundred and fifty four thousand, one hundred and twenty) voters.

UBOS figures show one noticeable thing: Any candidate, who would appeal to the voters aged between 18-25 years, the youth who have the majority votes accounting to 6.4 million, would potentially stick out. However, this group according to Dr Golooba and Dr Olum is the worst hit by lack of jobs, a critical campaign issue that could influence the young voters.

While political analytics disregarded pension as a serious campaign issue compared to corruption and poverty, voters aged 45 and above remains the second single age bracket with a large number of voters affected by poverty.
This group, whose major concern is also retirement and pension accounts for 2.8 million voters.
Rural Vs Urban voters
In rural areas where majority of the voters live — accounting to over 70 per cent of the total population - issues of national stability, healthcare, infrastructure, free education, declining investments in the agriculture sector and other income-generating activities among others are likely to influence the voters.

For the urban voters, political analysts have again singled out unemployment and poverty, tax burden, democracy, good governance and to be specific --- the issue of corruption, quality of free education, healthcare, infrastructure and cost of doing business in the country.

“All candidates must tell us how they intend to address the problem of the unemployed youth in urban areas. We are facing a crisis and this is a critical issue that must be tackled.

“The opposition must tell the voters how they want to deal with this challenge instead of criticising President Museveni for failure to deal with this crisis,” Dr Golooba said.
Unemployed voters
While figures on the state of unemployment and poverty in the country indicate that at least 10 million Ugandans are stuck in abject poverty and many remain unemployed, latest government figures put the number of the poor at 7.1 million. Whatever the case may be, statistics from the labour department show that out of the 400,000 students who graduate from various tertiary institutions across the country each year, only 8,000 have a chance of being gainfully employed. This means that for every one job that is available there are at least 50 qualified people labouring to get it. Labour market experts say that given the widespread corruption in the country, even the most qualified for the available jobs don’t get them because the labour market is highly “patronised”.

On unemployment and poverty, a deciding factor in this election, the Government Chief Whip, Daudi Migereko, who is also a member of the NRM manifesto team said: “We have a drafted a manifesto which is highly structured on issues of poverty and unemployment facing our youth today. We have identified these problems as critical for development.”
Whereas President Museveni has made some progress in reducing poverty levels, the high levels of unemployment especially in Buganda where majority voters are and the prevalent corruption in the country, are evidently compounding his efforts to put money in peoples’ pockets, a sticky issue his challengers will be focusing on to sway the tide as this political race approaches its climax.