There’s never a dull moment in a Ugandan election, I’ll have you know

It is only two weeks into the political campaigns but there’s already enough material to shoot a season of a B-grade political soap opera. Take just two pages from the Wednesday edition of this newspaper.

 First, fist fights broke out in the Main Street in Gulu town as rowdy youths hired by the ruling NRM party, protested against a reduction in their Campaign Rally Attendance & Cheerleading Allowances. Nelson Kalegeya, a 20-year-old from Luweero District, said he and 19 others were promised Shs100,000 per day to attend the party candidate’s rallies, but were dismayed when they were only paid half.

 The running battles spilled over into the nearby Cemetery Road and it is just as well no one was killed – although that would have saved a bit of money with funeral arrangements.

It isn’t clear what the terms of reference for Campaign Rally Attendance Officer positions are: an undergraduate degree in cheerleading (preferred) or a diploma in heckling (acceptable); ability to clap under minimum supervision; experience in laughing at unfunny jokes, but there’s a bit of greed here.

 Shs100k to sit around all day in a tent and hooray dry manifesto promises or ululate when some political turncoat is unveiled-doesn’t sound like particularly strenuous work. Even Shs50k works out to about a million shillings a month; I haven’t been through the area in a bit, but I don’t know how many 20-year-olds in Luweero bank that in a month of Sundays.

 The same paper had a story of the NRM candidate promising to send Shs5m, Shs300,000 and Shs100,000 to district, sub-county and parish campaign committees to facilitate door-to-door canvasing. That sounds like a lot more work although, it must be pointed out, for a lot less ululating. Still, the young hecklers should sit down and clap.

 The money fights in the NRM are nothing compared to the suffering in the Opposition ranks. Former presidential candidate Kizza Besigye fell victim to NRM propaganda which took one of his statements, stripped it of context, and presented it in a way that shows him endorsing the incumbent.

 This skulduggery isn’t new. The people who pushed fake news in 1996 about the impending return of Milton Obote to sabotage the Kawanga Ssemogerere campaign are well known. Some still live among us. There has been time to polish the dark arts.

 Besigye’s discomfort, however, pales, in significance to that of the man who set out to fill his shoes, before abandoning them altogether. Patrick Oboi Amuriat, the FDC party candidate, is campaigning barefoot to be one with the people, but he is suffering the fate of the wretched of the earth.

 First, he was seen, barefoot and trouser legs rolled up, pushing his stuck car out of a muddy potato garden that is also used as a road. In campaigns gone by this would have triggered a debate on the state of roads but the race has been packed with so many comedians and pranksters, that the poignancy of the moment was splattered with mud.

 He was then arrested in Kitgum where, somehow, his campaign schedule had criss-crossed with that of the NRM candidate, and forcefully driven off to his next scheduled campaign rally in Lamwo District next door.

 Violent encounters between Opposition candidates and anti-riot police are now a daily occurrence. Some candidates might meet more police officers than voters!

 Opposition candidates are having to fight running battles with anti-riot police by day, then address area residents on evening radio and television talk shows. But even this isn’t guaranteed to work.

 In Agago District, Mr Amuriat appeared on a paid-for radio talk show on Monday evening, the newspaper told us. He proceeded to reel off the reasons why he is the best candidate while detailing the promises in his manifesto of what he will implement when, not if he is elected president.

 There was one problem, though. While the moderator continued to pose questions and interrogate the candidate’s policy proposals, someone, suspected to be a security agent, had quietly pulled the plug at the transmitter. For half an hour Mr Amuriat pontificated in the radio studio but no one outside heard him.

This episode, sadly, doesn’t answer the riddle of whether a tree that falls in the forest when there’s no one to hear it makes any noise. But it tells us there is never a dull moment in our campaigns – and that there’s plenty of noise, but very little signal.

Mr Kalinaki is a journalist and poor man’s freedom fighter.

[email protected] @Kalinaki