Scottish referendum malpractices prove Britain is not more democratic than Uganda

trueBy Sam Akaki

I write as someone with firsthand experience in Ugandan and British politics, having been an acting FDC spokesperson during the 2006 general election, worked as Parliamentary Officer in the UK for 15 years and stood as an independent parliamentary candidate in 2010.  This is my assessment.

Britain may have been practicing and perfecting democracy for over 900 years, some 850 years longer than Uganda, but that is where the difference ends. Why? The March 2006 Commonwealth observer team report on Uganda’s presidential election could easily have been referring to the catalogue of state-inspired malpractices which marred the recent Scottish referendum in which the pro-independence camp lost by 10%. Consider these salient points in the Commonwealth report on Uganda.

“So far as the electoral process as a whole was concerned, it is clear that the environment in which the election was held had several negative features, which meant that candidates were not competing on a level playing field...the failure to ensure a clear distinction between the ruling party and sate, the lack of balance in media coverage, the creation of a climate of apprehension among the public and the opposition supporters because of the involvement of the security services.”

Fast-forward, to the Scottish referendum in September 2014 and you find the UK government explicitly applying the same tactics to win the Scottish referendum. 

For starters, the British head of State, Her Majesty the Queen, who is barred by the Constitution from commenting on political issues, went out of her way and “advised” the Scots to think carefully before voting for independence. 

Then followed the Prime Minister David Cameron, who blurred the line between his party and state when he summoned the heads of businesses to No 10 Downing Street, where he asked them to make public statements warning of dire economic consequences, if the Scots voted for independence.

And then the treasury ministers allegedly leaked market-sensitive information to the BBC regarding the plan by the RBS to relocate their operations from Scotland in the event of Scottish independence, forcing the stock market to dive.

Then 15 generals, including six former heads of the army came together in a remarkable line-up of more than 400 former servicemen and women who issued a public plea to the Scottish voters to reject independence.

In a joint letter published in the popular Sun newspaper, they wrote, “as former members of the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force who are proud to call Scotland our home, we passionately believe that the people of Scotland will be stronger and more secure, if we remain part of the United Kingdom.”

The letter was signed by seven former Chiefs of Defence Staff - Lords Boyce, Guthrie, Inge, Vincent, Stirrup, Craig and Richards. Also putting their names to the letter were three former First Sea Lords - Lord West, Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope and Admiral Sir Jonathan Band; three ex-Army chiefs - Lord Dannatt, General Sir Mike Jackson and General Sir Roger Wheeler; and former head of the RAF, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Johns.

This intervention by the generals forced the Scottish leader Alex Salmond to warn that the generals “should not try to use people's service for political reasons".

And led by the BBC, all the broadcast and print media houses, save for the Scottish Herald, joined forces against the pro-independence supporters, derogatively referring to them as “secessionists” and “separatists” while renaming the Scottish National Party (SNP)  “Seriously Nasty Party”

Thousands of angry pro-independence supporters responded by surrounding the BBC’s Scottish headquarters in Glasgow accusing the corporation and its political editor, Nick Robinson, of conniving with the treasury to spread lies about the dangers to business and financial services of an independent Scotland.  To make their point, they carried posters with the words “British Biased Corporation” and “British Brainwashing Corporation”. 

The Telegraph and the Daily Mail, even allowed their columnists to put article comparing the Scottish National party leader Alex Salmond to the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and the former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez respectively.
In a final act of sabotage, one week before the referendum, the unionist party leaders including the Conservatives’ David Cameron, Labour’s Ed Miliband and the Liberal Democrats’ Nick Clegg published a joint “vow” to give more powers to the Scots, if they voted to remain within the Union. But less than 24 hours after the referendum, David Cameron said there will be no powers to Scotland unless similar powers are also given to England, threatening the entire British constitutional arrangement.

Lord Ashdown, the former leader Liberal Democrat party, a junior partner in the coalition government, has accused the Prime Minister of “pretty disgraceful” behaviour. He told Sky News last Sunday “Mr Cameron, quite deliberately to satisfy his backbenchers, and also to create a trap for Labour, played politics with his own promise… That is, in my view, extremely foolish and extremely damaging to his reputation and to the reputation of Westminster.

He is absolutely right.  The fraudulent methods, used by the three main UK parties to win the Scottish referendum, have not only demonstrated that the UK is not a model democracy to be copied by Uganda or any other African country. The UK party leaders and the press have also forfeited any scintilla of moral authority they may have had to criticise any shortcoming in an electoral process in Africa and across the world.

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