Is politics really a dirty game? 

This photo taken on January 07, 2021 shows Jinja DPC Ahmed Hasunira, pulling out presidential candidate, Bobi Wine
out of his car when he stopped at the road side to address an International presser. PHOTO/ ABUBAKER LUBOWA

This week, I planned to help children in my rural community to improve their reading and numeracy skills, something I have always done during Christmas holidays.

 This Christmas break, however, the presidential campaigns caught my attention, leading me to search why people say politics is a nasty and dirty game. 

Those who are not familiar with political processes need to understand that people who play dirty politics are more likely to win an election than not. 

Examples can be provided from countries that have seen most fighters,  calling themselves freedom fighters, turn into dictators.

 They plunder natural resources and unleashing terror on citizens they are meant to protect. 

They suffocate freedom of expression and assembly, practice politics of exclusion and denial, arrest and even kill opponents with impunity, etc. 

In Uganda’s case today, while some of the presidential candidates are first timers on the national political scene, others have been in politics long enough to know how the game is played. 

Someone may ask why people of high moral decency would be joining a dirty game. However, some Ugandans are angry and bitter hence they need to heal.

The principled, genuine, play-by-the-rules, and unblemished-by-the-system candidates whom society hold in high esteem, end up losing elections at the hands of those who play dirty. 

When joining politics, high-minded candidates in the current campaign, should have known that power is never given, it must always be taken. 

This means that politicians who do not play dirty will always find themselves at the short end of the ballot box. 

As Frederick Douglass said: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong, which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. 

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”   
 
Patrick Kakwezi,
[email protected]