Why we should consider reducing MPs pay

By Dr Grace Karamura

The Presidential nominations for 2021 elections kicked off on Monday concluding Tuesday, as per Electoral Commission (EC) timeline.

However, the recently concluded preliminary elections have left the country wondering how the electoral atmosphere will look like come 2021. There are those who think that from the experience of the primaries, 2021 will be a real battleground, where the winner will be determined not by the ballot, but the button.

I hold a different view though; 2021 elections could be the most peaceful elections, the first in kind since the reintroduction of multiparty politics.

My reasons are obvious. Any hint of electoral fraud or violence, NRM will have betrayed itself.

We are going into national elections when there is no credible opposition to contest against the ruling party and even the few that will venture, will do so simply out of duty rather than conviction.

Opposition parties have become like the famous grasshopper in the bottle analogy, who instead of joining hands to wrestle an elephant, have instead turned against each thus annihilating themselves, surprisingly using the very rope donated by the ruling party, to hamstring themselves.

Perhaps it could be the reason we witnessed unprecedented violence in the recent party preliminary elections.

Making it through as a flag bearer means an automatic somersault into Parliament with all the parks that comes with it.

Most candidates were determined to use whatever means to cajole the electorate either through beating, bribery, intimidation and any other coercive means that would ensure their victory.

How someone can be beaten at a polling station and still vote, I don't get it. Such violence has left any sane Ugandan wondering what politics is about. It has ceased to be a service and instead turned into a job-hunting ground with whoever throws the heaviest blow becoming the winner.

And why not. Being an MP now is the most lucrative, well-paying job in the country that people are willing to sacrifice all they have and the life of others just to go to Parliament.

I wonder what would happen if we reduced an MPs salary to say sh5m per month.

Would we still watch the kind of zealous, violent drama as has been the case?

Let's bring an MPs salary in line with other Civil servants. One immediate advantage would emerge - the quality of MPs and debates in Parliament would improve in the first sitting.

Only committed candidates who aren't driven by gains would contest. It would also drastically reduce electoral violence because there would be nothing much to die or kill for.

Even the ruling party would benefit because they would know who are its genuine cadres.

We had reservations about lining up as the most democratic method to determine a candidate. On the surface, it seemed democratic yet the drama of these last preliminaries proved us to the contrary.

We seem to have had more electoral fraud than if we used the secret ballot. There are people who due to their sensitive offices couldn't vote, for instance, priests, doctors, judges, families with contesting candidates, where two candidates came from the same village etc.

Having said that, we gave the lining up method the benefit of doubt as it seemed to be the most transparent, cheap method to use.

We thought it impossible that one could still cheat an election when people are lining behind their candidates of choice.

But as it turned out there was more rigging, intimidation, open vote buying than in the secret ballot. Our politics has two challenges. The first one is the voter. At the height of these past elections, Prof. Ephraim Kamuntu decried the level of complacency among the electorate who are bought by a mere sh2,000 and sometimes a pair of knickers!

He gave a convincing analysis of how much a voter gets vis-a-vis the MPs salary once he is through. For someone to line up the whole day for a mere sh2,000 is not only abused to the unsuspecting poor voter but also an indicator of the kind of representatives we are sending in Parliament. The argument from the voters is that sh2,000 is better than nothing.

The second problem is our laws which are applied selectively.

If candidates were certain of the wrath of the law and the consequences of electoral malpractice, they would take hid. During the elections, candidates' agents were openly dishing out money as if it was part of the electoral exercise. If we let this to prevail, Parliament will only be for the rich as was the case with the 18th Century Europe.

Yet the richest are not usually the wisest.

As a country, we have planted couch grass, (Elymus repens) among the young generation by our actions that whatever future elections they shall ever hold are likely to follow the same trend. A couch grass grows rapidly through the top rich fertile layer of soil creating a thick mat of roots which remove water and nutrients from the soil.

This makes it very difficult for other plants to grow. It bogs one's understanding when we see plants voting for couch grass to represent them.

It is my conviction that as a country, we can make and turn around politics to serve the common man for whom it is intended.

But this can only be done, if we dropped selfishness, greed and come into politics with a clear vision for service. At the funeral service for the late Major General Benon Biraro, Mugisha Muntu, in his eulogy said something about him that always rings in my mind.

Turning to Biraro's children, Muntu said, ‘your father may not have left you much in worldly terms, but he has left behind a name'. The same was echoed by Isaac Musumba to Mathew Rukikaire after his resignation amidst the Uganda Commercial Bank saga.

After Rukikaire had presented and thoroughly answered every point in the Select Committee's report in Parliament, he concluded by announcing his resignation. Musumba in appreciation and awe of Rukikaire later wrote to him, ‘I salute you and hold your courage in high esteem.

I have learnt that all the worldly things can go, but the honour and self-esteem of a person of your stature must be preserved at all costs - because it lives after you.'

If only we had men and women of such calibre in our politics, the legacy we would leave behind for the young generation would be different. .

The writer is a Ugandan living in the UK