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I have been a victim of the Kisanja Brigade, who have been bombarding me with Christmas and New Year messages saying that whether I liked it or not, they had "given" President Yoweri Museveni his fifth term.
They were telling me that in a few months, the Movement forces in Parliament will vote to amend the constitution and abolish presidential term limits, and that they know what to do when it comes to a referendum---make Museveni president for life.
They shouldn't waste their airtime and dial-up minutes on this. Yes, I don't support the lifting of presidential term limits. I also think that Museveni's best moments are many years in the past. Yet I do understand that there are many people who would like him to turn senile in State House. I don't agree with them, but if even if I alone could, I wouldn't deny them their wish to have Museveni rule until his 85th
birthday.
This is because one of the big political failures in Africa in general, and Uganda specifically, is our inability to accept and come to terms with a result if our candidate or idea loses out. While Museveni and his camp - like others before him like Milton Obote - do steal votes, if he wins lawfully in his Kisanja project, let him have it. When he has had his fill, and his time comes, thus giving the country learn from the experience when it returns to the path of democratic growth, one can only expect that in return, the "president-for-liftists" will accept the new result which ends their man's reign.
That's why I don't necessarily buy into the idea that Museveni and the Movement's electoral victories are somehow illegitimate because the bulk of their support is in the villages and up-country among illiterate peasants: That the educated people in the urban areas
who know better tend be more sceptical, hence the lower score that Museveni gets in these areas - and the need to bring out Maj. Kakooza Mutale and his yellow bus to beat up and intimidate voters in the towns. Or that because peasants are "ignorant" it's easy for the incumbent president to "manipulate" them as Museveni has done over the years.
Unless we are saying that people who are uneducated or poor shouldn't vote, we have no alternative but to accept the decision of the "ignorant peasants". First, elections are the best mirror of a country that there can be in Africa. If the Electoral Commission is efficient and honest, it tells you something positive about the capabilities of a country's institutions and the professionalism of its public servants.
If it bungles the elections and is swayed by the government and president as in Uganda, then you know the electoral
commission is in the primitive stages of development. And so you are likely to find the other institutions - the Revenue Authority, Parliament, the army and police - in the same condition of decomposition or stunted growth.
Secondly, there is really no "right" reason why someone should vote for or against a candidate or a proposal like Kisanja. If a man votes for a female candidate because he finds her beauty the most compelling reason she should be in office; then another has a right to vote against her because she is short; and another has an equal right to vote for her because he likes her views on UPE; and yet another is perfectly entitled to vote for her because he is ignorant of where she stands on the issues, but supports her because the president has said she's the right person for Parliament.
True, the voter who chooses on the basis of UPE makes a qualitatively
more superior decision than the one who chooses a candidate because he likes her long hair. But if we don't accord the two different decisions equality, we end up with the situation where those who voted for Dr Kizza Besigye in the 2001 elections are hounded and chased into exile because they are considered "enemies", and those who picked Museveni are "good" people who should be rewarded. If we think it's wrong to vote for someone because of his or tribe, it follows that it's wrong to vote for him or her because they are not of the party we support.
The "ignorant" choice of the peasant, therefore needs to be accorded the same respect as the "wise" decision of a university don not because it's somehow right, but for political stability. Political stability is important because it's, ultimately (often against the wishes of the rulers of the day) the best condition in which democracy
breeds.
In Uganda in the 1996 and 2001 presidential elections many voters made choices out of fear, or because they were beaten. Take the voters in Jinja and Mbale who were whipped by Mutale's pro-Museveni Kalangala Action Plan militia.
For an election observer, that's a serious breach. But for the man who doesn't want to be beaten for voting against Museveni, and therefore grants the president his wish in order to keep Mutale's whip away, that's a perfectly well considered choice. For elections are about interests. If I vote in order to reduce the threat to my life, my decision has the same status as Frank Katusiime who votes for the candidate who has promised to privatise tax collection and water.
If we are too cowardly (or are too indifferent) to go out and demonstrate against the rape of the constitution, and if we will not confront a government that steals
elections unlike what the masses did in Georgia or more recently Ukraine, it's a reflection of what we are: That we are not like the Ukrainians. The one thing that will never lie to us and the rest of the world about where Uganda has reached, and what kind of people we truly are, is the way we vote - or don't vote.
It's easy to understand that the pro-Kisanja hordes are interested in the constitution amendment because of what holds for the personal fate of Museveni. Others like myself are interested in the president-for-life project primarily because of what it reveals about the character of our nation.
My reputation as an analyst is at stake. I have written widely and been quoted in more articles and radio and TV interviews than I can count, saying my "expert" knowledge of Uganda and Museveni's politics leads me to conclude that he would amend the constitution and cling
to power.
Actually, in 1996, I was "mad" enough to become the first talking head to say that Museveni was planning to remain president until 2016!
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