{UAH} Pojim/WBK: Oh yes, I will sell my vote to the highest bidder - Commentary
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Oh yes, I will sell my vote to the highest bidder
In Summary
Why do you think Amama Mbabazi still finds it difficult to express some kind of remorse for some administrative and political actions that 'may' (just may) have hurt some people? It is because he is not a politician but a power game player.
Kiburara is an innocent settlement 25 kilometres to the Uganda-DR Congo in Kasese District. It is home to two of Kasese's six Members of Parliament, a senior civil servant (Chief Administrative Office) and some other national players.
By divine endowment, there are three major rivers; namely Rwembya, Nyamughasani and Kanyambara. However, in spite of this natural drainage system, Kiburara has a perennial problem of crop failure due to prolonged droughts (absence of rain).
Dear reader, I would like to engage active participants in the 2016 elections on the issue of crop failure in Kiburara.
Issue-driven campaign
Journalists have been challenged to 'pick out the issues' in the election campaigns. Those assigning this responsibility are asking the Ugandan media to give what they don't have. In the Ugandan media, we still have issues with our grammar and syntax; the testimony of which is the website of a major TV station (no naming names).
The heart of the matter is that Uganda as a country, does not operate on a national agenda but selfish and partisan political interests. In fact, a Ugandan journalist would be ill-advised to pick on corruption as a civic issue to rally the conscience of the population. Ditto for an aspiring presidential candidate.
If you hinge your election campaign on governance issues, you would be in trouble. The economy? No sir, this too, is not an issue to the electorate. If you talk of the poor quality of education and lack of job-attracting skilling, someone will read you a list of universities and tell you how Uganda is the region's centre of education excellence.
Ugandans just don't have the minimum of a national consensus on how and what our country should be. Why is this? Well, because the population is not related or attached to the State in a mutual symbiosis common place with democracies.
In normal circumstances, the gap between the population and the State is supposed to be filled by the civil society. But the civil society in Uganda is feeble and is also removed from the general social development challenges facing the people.
Pay for my vote
The only national election in which Ugandans had issue-driven campaign was in 2001. This is when candidate Kizza Besigye suggested a raft of administrative and political reforms that represented policy matters and spoke directly to the people.
Then candidate Museveni cleverly spoilt things. He diverted the issue-based discourse by claiming that he was katopini (cut pin of a bicycle pedal). He posed as the central plunk of the national politics without whom the country would crumble.
'If Museveni is the katopini, then I am the ssenyondo (master hammer) that would remove the katopini' candidate Besigye responded. After those exchanges, the campaign deteriorated into a personal brawl from which national politics has never recovered. Uganda does not have political leaders in the traditional sense. All our elections are a do-or-die affair; and politicians (in the traditional sense of the word) don't flourish in such a situation.
Why do you think Amama Mbabazi still finds it difficult to express some kind of remorse for some administrative and political actions that 'may' (just may) have hurt some people? It is because he is not a politician but a power game player.
I am a forthright Mukonzo tribesman who swears on the pain of his circumcision and his ancestors. I am candid enough to tell you that I hate politicians and their politics yet recognise that we are in this together.
So, here is the deal: you are in need of power in 2016 and I am in need of money. If you are convinced that my vote can give you power, pay for it ekyo nakyo kigwe (done deal).
Mr Bisiika is the executive
editor of East Africa Flagpost.
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