It is dangerous to keep people in electioneering

By Mary Karooro Okurut

There is something rather odd – I am choosing my words very carefully here – that has been going in the country in the last few years, but really accentuated now.

A crispier person would have varied or enriched the diction to include something akin to illegal, unlawful, dangerous or unacceptable. Let us begin by pronouncing that once an election is done, it is done; it is over (unless there is a by-election).

And in the case of Uganda, elective positions are not due for grabs – meaning no office is vacant- until five years are done and dusted.

But a keen look around the country will tell you that for many people, this is either completely unheard of, or it is simply being ignored.

So those law-abiding citizens who are quietly waiting for the gazette time to present their manifesto to the electorate had better beware: some chaps are already in fullblown campaigns four years before the gazetted time.

And they did not begin it yesterday – most did not even so much as wait for the dust to settle down before embarking on the election trail.

The only thing they have wisened up to is not publishing – or pinning up – posters, or send fliers around the place. But they are doing every other thing that is done during election campaign time. They are holding rallies and every other form of public meeting, making speeches in churches and giving donations – each with that huge knowing wink and dubious, sly smile of ‘you know what I’m saying!’.

Promises are being made about what they will do once voted into power. As is often the case – huge cash donations are being made to this or that group.

Campaign teams of some former candidates – mostly parliamentary and district chairpersons - have as matter of fact, never been disbanded. They simply dusted themselves after the election was gone, and got up to continue from where they had left off.

Interestingly, it is not only the opposition we are talking about here: politicians on both sides of the political spectrum (ruling party and opposition) are in full gear in some places.

I say so because the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) being a mass party, enjoys exclusivity in some places, to the extent that in such areas no other party bothered to field any candidates.

But the same seems to be the case even for the highest office in the land – some people are already on the move, seeking mandate to become chief executive officer of Uganda; and they too began on that even before the incumbent had taken oath!

Our people must understand that the President was legitimately ushered in by the people, so there is no other election until after five years.

Same goes for the parliamentary and local government offices. It ought to be made clear to the citizens that once the people cast their vote and it is confirmed by the Electoral Commission, it is game over: it is time to go back to work.

You cannot keep people electioneering long after the election is over. Normal work and business schedules should be reverted to. Production should resume; income should start flowing… again.

We cannot fight poverty or cause prosperity for all when a good section of the citizenry is pre-occupied with electioneering. It is a sure way to sustain poverty.

Besides, it gives undue and very unfair advantage to the unscrupulous politicians who have neither shame nor qualms going about in full blown campaigns while their potential competition is sticking to the letter and spirit of the law.

In other words what would have been a very level playing ground is unfairly tilted and often with the result that the bad eggs are chosen simply because they began running before the whistle had been blown and long before the participants in the race had been called.

However, there is another strand of politicking – the Activists for Change, aka A4C who have lately been all over the place holding rallies.

Mercifully in these last rallies they seem to have sat down with police and agreed on the routes, venues and general guidelines because they need protection and so do the people they are addressing.

But unfortunately, it has now turned into a full-blown election campaign, and their message is that President Museveni will be gone by December – forgetting that he is a perfectly legitimate leader. How and where does he go when he has the peoples mandate for the next five years?

I don’t want to dwell on the business of saying he will go – because that I obviously only in their imagination.

But whoever it is, unless as we said above there is a by-election, let people return to work. The Good Book tells us there is a time for everything – even elections. Once an election has taken place every citizen has a legal duty to give the sitting government room to implement its manifesto.

That is how politics is handled in civilized places. You do not elect a government today and then set out to frustrate it using unlawful means.

Lastly, it is important for us, as a nation, to come up with strict laws that expressly outlaw electioneering outside the designated campaign time. This would aim at protecting the general public interest and also increase the integrity of the electoral process.

It is dangerous for any country to keep people in electioneering, because then they have little time for anything else and famine and poverty will strike them sooner than later.

The writer is the Minister of Information and National Guidance