Politicians in a young democracy

By David Mukholi

A lot is being said about elections lately in the run up to the 2016 polls. From the talk it is clear both the opposition and the ruling party want free and fair elections to advance democracy.

Several proposals in different fora have been made on how to improve the quality of elections and in effect democracy. But Ugandan politicians contesting in national elections and party primaries are yet to appreciate the basics of electoral contests — there are winners and losers. First they believe in themselves and then develop confidence of winning but forget the possibility of losing.

Oftentimes they do not even assess the strength of the rivals and other factors including their track record, personality and the party or in case of primaries the faction they are allied to.

It is this and heavy spending during campaigns that when defeated, politicians are quick to blame it on rigging. Sometimes there are cases of election malpractices, which are taken to court and won. But in most cases, election rigging is a convenient excuse to explain and cover defeat. And it can also be used as justification to pull out of a race when faced with defeat as seen in recent cases.

In July Erias Lukwago, the embattled Kampala Lord Mayor, opted out of the contest for the Democratic Party (DP) president general claiming the process was fraudulent. At least, for him unlike most politicians, he had sensed defeat given his narrow central Buganda support against Norbert Mao’s coming from the rest of the other five regions.

Former Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi also declined running for the National Resistance Movement (NRM) for chairmanship and flag bearer raising issues with the election process.

This month, political parties will be selecting their presidential flag bearers and candidates for parliamentary and local government elections. The NRM primaries run on the basis of universal adult suffrage are expected to be heated and losers will cry foul simply as an act to conceal humiliation that comes with defeat. It will be the same next year after the national elections; losers will swear they were rigged out.

With the big numbers of contestants for parliamentary and local government races when losers as if in unison claim rigging – a few cases genuine and the majority not - one could easily conclude its was widespread. Yet the claims are bloated by bad losers ashamed of conceding defeat.

Failure to accept election outcomes is a result of a combination of factors. These include arrogance, ignorance, failure to assess oneself and the opponents as well as inability to evaluate

the environment to weigh the odds. All these are a result of blindly investing in politics and also spending large sums of money. A few times it is about banking on the voter’s sympathy. It is also a pointer that many politicians are looking at elective jobs as a source of income. So they throw caution to the wind and invest heavily both in cash and emotions. The consequence is heated election contests with them fighting tooth and nail to win. This also leads to commercialising politics as contestants spend hefty sums of money to win support.

In some extreme cases there are reports of selling off property including land and houses to invest in politics. Personal savings are also withdrawn to run campaigns jeopardizing families’ survival.

The excitement for elections is probably part of learning democracy, especially multi-party. A quick scan to the pasts shows democracy was untenable and consequently there were no elections for long. This trend changed in 1996 when Uganda had the first elections under the 1995 Constitution. Even then some questioned the elections because they were based on individual merits and not political parties.

Although elections were held regularly, since then, some argued individual merit rather than political parties was less of democracy. Even the coinage non-party democracy (Movement political system) could not placate the criticisms. The pro-party advocate also denigrated the next election under the Movement system disregarding the fact that at least people had been granted the opportunity to exercise their right. It took the 2005 referendum, which was more of a formality, to open the political space that rebirthed multiparty democracy.

Since then elections have been held regularly, in accordance with the Constitution, and the consistent call to improve the quality of democracy echoed in the run-up to the polls. Out of this Uganda can be said to be in a state best described as a nascent democracy.
 
It means Uganda is far from where Norway, the most democratic country in the world is, and also not to the other extreme near the undemocratic North Korean.

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