Do or die NRM primaries: Sanitise Uganda’s politics

By Fred Sheldon Mwesigwa

The recently concluded NRM primaries in Ankole sub-region and particularly Isingiro District fulfilled the adage that politics is a dirty game. This is so given the massive discontent, including allegations of bribery, falsification of results, violence and in some cases deaths.
It is regrettable that a political process that is meant to identify right leaders for our communities, descends into a nightmarish experience that we all would love to quickly forget. The ultimate anti-dote ought be the redress of the contextual issues and giving an ear to the aggrieved parties so that a similar pattern is not repeated in the 2021 General Election.
From the outset, the preference of a political system of lining up behind preferred candidates was transparent and would have minimised cheating compared to use of secret ballot, whose dynamics of casting votes and counting might be more translucent.
Despite voters lining up behind contestants or their posters at polling stations and voting officials publicly counting and documenting the data, between the polling centres and the main tally centre, the results in many cases had been altered in favour of some candidates. Such candidates are more likely than not, to have bribed the registrars and perhaps the party chairperson.
It is foolhardy to expect ordinary citizens, with modern technology, not to easily compare notes with their village neighbours and come up with miracle results that are not reflecting those read at the polling stations. It is saddening that two citizens were killed in the melodrama and that vehicles ferrying pangas and sticks, were impounded by security forces in one incident. Surely what do pangas and spears have to do with an electoral process unless some Ugandans are nursing ideas of provoking a genocide.
The provocation by a minister, who had lost an election notwithstanding, did not warrant the use of a gun to threaten citizens of Uganda. This is not in tandem with civil electoral processes and ought be condemned and repented of by all who have perpetrated it before or nursed ideas of trying it out. Perhaps the biggest factor igniting the electoral excesses is the inter-linkage between politics and money. The pecuniary interests of many candidates ranks high above the aspiration to meet the needs of the citizens. As a result, many candidates invest heavily in the campaigns and end up heavily indebted. A loss at the ballot for some of them is equated to loss of a livelihood or a whole future.
The resultant loss of money, power and prestige sparks outrage and citizens are left to pick up the pieces through violence and even death. There is an urgent need to sanitise Ugandan politics so that civility reins. We should elect leaders based on their qualifications, competencies, ethical standards, service to community, and not how much money one can part with.
I am happy that in the NRM primaries, there are many candidates whose money was ‘chewed’ by citizens, who voted on the basis of contestants character and leadership ability. Why should money be given by candidates to citizens next time?
It is delightful to hear the President and chairman of NRM, condemning voter bribery, violence and killings of citizens. The President also called for a review of electoral records instead of troubling the citizens to vote again in the disputed constituencies. Let me hope and pray that Ugandan politics will be sanitised through civic education and de-monetising of politics so that the best candidates will emerge in a civil, free and fair election.