Violent elections and the consequences on country

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OPINION

By Dr Grace P’Karamura

The just-concluded Party primaries have left many Ugandans concerned.

To see candidates from the same political party clubbing one another as if they were strangers has shocked many. It makes any peace-loving Ugandan wonder the direction we’re driving our country to.

This violence is not a one-off. Almost every election cycle, we look forward to this unfortunate, violent drama. It is now expected that we get surprised if some constituencies organise a non-violent election, devoid of rigging!

From 1966, as we’re often reminded, Uganda has come a long way. It is just unfortunate that some people want to drag the country back to those vote-rigging, violent days. It is many years back, and perhaps we have forgotten the lessons of history. I honestly hope that none of us Ugandans, especially our politicians, are taking the peace we’ve had in the last 40 years for granted!

Like Bishop Festo Kivengere used to remind us, peace is a rare commodity that should be protected jealously, especially by those entrusted with its custody, our leaders.

It hurts to see elected candidates from the same party, if that helps, drawing weapons at each other; others bleeding profusely because their heads were split into parts. It should concern every peace-loving Ugandan to see helpless candidates rigged out of their victory, either because they don’t have money, they’re not politically well-connected or can’t fight back.

We wonder why our politics, primaries or national, have become a matter of life and death. Candidates are ready to sell their soul, their dignity and status for nothing else but to become a flag bearer.

Apparently, in a country where the opposition is on oxygen, it is a sure deal for any successful candidate to win the national elections. Consequently, they’ll pour in whatever resources at their disposal, both materially and in force, that they win. But at what cost!!

Our politics, like that of 18th-century Europe, are being defined by three factors: money, might, and connections. Gone are the days when people from humble beginnings won elections on merit. It is money as we’ve seen candidates’ agents dishing it out to the poor voters who sell their future for only two thousand shillings or less.

No, it isn’t their fault! Those poor whose votes may be bought for a penny and sometimes, a beating, have been through worse. They know that their voice doesn’t count. They would rather line up for a penny, a knicker, and anything else we can humiliate them with. What hurts, though, is that those exploiting them are yesterday’s graduates whose education at Makerere University was sponsored by the poor. Our MPs, who should know better, simply buy the poor with lots of meat, drinks and anything else that can intoxicate them.

That aside, where are the authorities in this electoral cycle? Since 2001, we’ve held elections every five years. One would have thought that by now, some legal mechanisms would have been put in place to ensure against such blatant chronic violence. Why haven’t measures been put in place to deter violent candidates, those who buy votes, and those who beat others to be disqualified automatically? We’ve seen some candidates threatening others without fear of any deterrent law.

Politics without ethics, the respect for the law, is indicative of the kind of society we’ve raised. We’re bribing in the broad day, the poor are dropping out of school, and can’t access affordable health services because a certain politician stole the supposed money. Surprisingly, we return such politicians every electoral cycle. When the poor live amidst such moral decay, they grudgingly accept selling themselves out of lack!

We saw the scenes of the campaign and electoral managers who humiliated us. The poor were gathered in one place for a meat lunch, waragi, and God knows what else, all in exchange for their votes. They may accept being humiliated, but deep in their conscience, they know. And when the poor know but the politicians think that they don’t, it becomes cagey! When the poor are drinking that waragi, eating that lunch meat, lining up for one thousand shillings, but don’t see the politicians and their families drinking it with them, the poor are in the know.

It should concern us all that someone can spend one billion shillings just in an election without explaining the source and the motive. Obviously, if one spends that much, they’ll spend the rest of that Parliament period trying to recover their losses, consequently giving less attention to the plight of the voters. Social-economic concerns only come up during the campaign period and die immediately after.

Empty campaign slogans to hoodwink the electorate have shocked us. One politician promised to build an airport where it wasn’t even relevant or needed. Another one promised the electorate iron sheets (eshuuka z’ebyoma – metal bedsheets)!

Uganda is our country, you and I, and it is up to us to shape it into the country we want. Quite often, I meditate on the peace we have enjoyed in the last 40 years. But my heart beats whenever I see some politicians trying to take it for granted. Peace is like a garden. We must look after it. The scenes we saw in some constituencies, some brandishing guns, were too ugly to repeat here. Whatever we do, let’s remember that there are millions of youngsters all admiring us as their role models. And these will be the politicians of tomorrow, emulating their role models.

When lining behind one’s preferred candidate was introduced, we thought that as a transparent option, it would be the best form of democracy. Surprisingly, it has turned out to be the opposite. That candidates can even rig in such a method leaves the whole system lacking.

Come to think of it, the lining system is not democratic at all. A democracy that doesn’t ensure our privacy as voters is a form of political intimidation to line up behind whoever dolled out money the previous night.

Perhaps it is time we returned to the secret ballot. True, the votes may still be stolen by whoever is counting. But it ensures our privacy against those who intimidate the poor voters. I am sure many people don’t vote in the lining-up system for obvious reasons. Take, for instance, religious leaders, Judicial officials, the security forces, and many others. A more dangerous precedent is seeing someone who received money from both candidates wondering how to escape from the dilemma!

To a hungry person, temporary relief is more important than hope for a better future, which they have lived to doubt. Our ethical dilemmas are so complex.

Lack of knowledge might not be the biggest gap in our ethical conduct. Weak service delivery is a major gap that makes citizens vulnerable to manipulation using money. So, curbing corruption and improving service delivery will yield faster and better responses to ethical conduct during elections than ethical training.

It is high time we committed and devoted ourselves to an electoral and political violence-free society. This presupposes that soldiers don’t interfere with the electioneering process. The Electoral Commission undertakes civic education among citizens to enlighten them on political maturity and a mutual peaceful political coexistence to circumvent interparty political partisan animosity, altercations and conflicts. We fight the commercialisation of politics. Political leaders get a nominal or moderate salary to demotivate the would-be influx and “stampede” of innumerable competitors.

The writer is a Ugandan living in the UK