Museveni most followed candidate on social media — survey

The National Resistance Movement (NRM) presidential candidate, Yoweri Museveni has been rated as the most followed presidential candidate on social media.

He is ahead of other candidates, including Forum for Democratic Change's (FDC) Kizza Besigye and independent presidential candidate Amama Mbabazi.

According to an assessment of the impact of social media on political communication and civic engagement in Uganda by Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Museveni has more Facebook likes and twitter followers compared to presidential candidates Mbabazi and Besigye.

The assessment done between July 2015 and December last year, shows that Museveni has 188,629 Facebook likes, followed by Amama Mbabazi with 91,284 and Kizza Besigye 43,980.

The assessment also shows Museveni leading with the highest number of twitter followers amounting to 173,260. He is followed by Amama Mbabazi with 119,414 followers and Kizza Besigye with 17,094 by the time of the assessment early December last year.

"During this research, we visited the Facebook pages of the three candidates on a 30-minute basis for three days and within that time frame, we determined that Mbabazi had at least one post on a one-hourly basis," read the assessment report.

The survey indicated that the three contestants have embraced social media as a political marketing tool.

The posts include campaign updates, schedules, manifesto updates and meetings.

The report was launched over the weekend at the residence of Mathias Kamp, the country representative of Konrad-Adenauer-Stifung Uganda and South Sudan.

According to Kamp, there is need for leaders, civil society and the government to embrace social media, which he said is the fastest way of breaking news.

The arrival and spread of new media technologies (also known as social media) such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube; among others and access to cheap smartphones, are fast altering this dominance over breaking news and discussing it.

Statistics by Konrad Adenuer -Stifung Uganda indicate that as of June 2014, 8.5 million people had internet access, representing, only 24.4% of the population.

However, at last count, Ugandan internet users had clocked 11.9 million according to the Uganda Communications Commission.

However, communication experts noted that despite the emergency of social media, traditional media is still important, saying it provides facts and detailed information.

"Ugandans and media houses should embrace social media, but should not abandon the traditional media. Some people no longer want to read newspapers or visit newspaper websites because of social media," Julius Mucunguzi, the communication advisor to the Prime Minister, said.

Dr. William Tayebwa, lecturer and the head of department of journalism and communication at Makerere University, said if not used well, social media can ruin services of government despite making work easy.