Survey rates MPs as lowest performers

By John KakandeA SURVEY conducted in 12 African countries, including Uganda, has rated Members of Parliament as the lowest performers among Africa’s elected leaders.“Respondents in Africa’s new democracies complain of a wide gap between citizens and their political representatives. Among elected leaders, MPs have the lowest performance rating when compared to local councillors and the President,” the survey report said.The report said the findings showed that experiments with multiparty democracy have a wide popular base and that dictators and military rulers have been rejected. In all the 12 countries surveyed, majority of respondents in Uganda (62%) said they were satisfied with the economic conditions.In Uganda 80% of respondents interviewed supported democracy and 62% said they were happy with how democracy was implemented. A total of 89% rejected military rule while 53% were opposed to one-party rule.A total of 21% said Uganda is ‘completely democratic’ while 27% said it is democratic with ‘minor’ problems. 5% said Uganda is not democratic. The Afrobarometer survey was conducted between mid-1999 and mid-2001 by scholars and institutions to assess citizen attitudes to democracy, economy and civil society.The Afrobarometer core partners are the Institute for Democracy in South Africa, the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) and Michigan State University’s department of political science. The sponsors included the United States Agency for International Development, Michigan State University, the Danish Governance Trust Fund and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. Countries surveyed were Botswana, Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.Over 21,000 people were interviewed. The survey does not represent Africa as a whole but only countries that have introduced a measure of democratic and market reform.