{UAH} Allan/Pojim/WBK: We know we can’t win, still we play the game - Comment
|
8:58 AM |
No comments |
We know we can't win, still we play the game
By L. Muthoni Wanyeki
Posted Saturday, February 27 2016 at 12:29
Anybody who's been a competitive sportsperson learns the art of both accepting triumph with grace and conceding defeat with a smile. Gloating when winning and pouting when losing is a no-no, a sign of ill-breeding.
This is when the sport is well-regulated. No drugs or roids to cancel out hours of training. No cheating or accepting bribes to lose. And no unfair adjudication.
The exceptions are the bad boys and girls of sports. For example, the tennis players who break racquets and swear. Whom everybody tolerates only because they are at the top of their game.
Consider the supposed outcome of the Ugandan elections. The reactions from the ostensible winner, as well as from the leading contender.
A tweet from @yoweri_museveni in the aftermath: "To my gallant opponents who lost, remember a child can play with it's [sic] mother's breasts, but not it's [sic] father's testicles. God bless Uganda."
The sole grace lies in the opening: "To my gallant opponents." The gloating follows, in the incumbent's supposedly folksy-proverbial, but typically sexist way. The no-no, the sign of ill-breeding. It is possible the incumbent considers himself an exception — a bad boy of politics, able to get away with anything, because he is entertainingly (he thinks) at the top of his game.
The truth of the matter is that that game was badly regulated. The drugs and roids were the ways in which the playing field was tilted, well in advance, in his favour.
The partisan nature of the security services, limiting the freedoms of expression and association of the electorate. The extreme difference in campaign financing. The misuse of other public resources for campaigning.
The cheating was the crazy happenings on polling day, particularly around Kampala, an opposition stronghold.
The late opening of polling stations, in some cases an hour before they closed. Prompting Ugandans to ask why the state was capable of providing security all across the capital, but not ballot papers.
The shutdown of communications services like WhatsApp, preventing the electorate from sharing its frustration. The detentions of the leading opposition candidate, on and off, through the weekend. Then the adjudication.
The moves to contain any negative reactions. The arrests of political party agents. The threats of arrest (even poisoning) of civil society election observers. The promise to crush the opposition in the five years ahead.
To their credit, most election observer missions — that of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development being an exception — were swift to publicly condemn these shenanigans. But their condemnation means nothing.
It is hard to understand why, given the odds against our choice, our vote, meaning anything, Africans go to the polls at all. We play the game — even when we know it's as riddled with corruption as Fifa. Why?
L. Muthoni Wanyeki is Amnesty International's regional director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes.
Related Posts:
{UAH} Maureen Kyalya: I will stand again for presidency in 2021
{UAH} THE PROBLEM OF "ANTI-RACISM"- {UAH} The triumph of people power in Malawi | TheHill
- {UAH} Us Based Basketballer Nambi Dreams Of Playing For Uganda
- {UAH} Opinion | Now, It's Americans Facing a Coronavirus Travel Ban - The New York Times
0 comments:
Post a Comment