LESSONS FROM UGANDA
By Col Hamwiinde Munamunungu
It’s interesting to see the amount of interest generated by many Zambians towards the Ugandan Presidential and General Elections. Many people were eager to follow the trends closely as if the elections were close to our neighbors like Tanzania or Zimbabwe.
Uganda is far from Zambia and what joins us is the Great Lakes Club, the membership of the Commonwealth of Nations, the African Union and the UN. Second link is because Kaunda was a great friend of Milton Obote of the 1960/70s and beyond. Remember that Obote was exiled to Zambia after His Excellency Dr & Field Marshal Idi Amin Dada took over power from Obote through a military coup in 1971. Otherwise it’s strange for most Zambians to show such an overwhelming interest in the affairs of Uganda.
However, there are other compelling reasons for Zambians to have this interest in the politics of Uganda in particular. Many nationals believe that what happens in Uganda will affect Zambia just because M7 is believed; for some unknown reasons, is a dear friend of our Chief Executive and indeed his instructor ( teacher). Some of us don’t see this relationship in those eyes but who am I to dispute what others see and believe.
They , Zambians,further feel that M7 is a bad example of leadership in Africa because of his prolonged stay in power against what he promised his citizens when he ascended to power some 35 years ago. Many believe that his “infectious flu” might spread to our CEO in Zambia to demand an overstay.
This is one major reason why the Zambians paid greater attention to the elections in Uganda.
The second reason is that they, Zambians, followed and admired the bravery of a political toddler, Bobi Wine. This grew their interest and hope for an anticipated regime change in Uganda through the ballot rather than through the barrel of the gun from China. They were sure that the toddler would overturn tables in Uganda.
The Election results are very interesting. First there was some semblance of law and order during voting because the voting itself was relatively peaceful. As usual there were delays here and there which appeared to conform with a well calculated move to meet the demands of rigging. Why, for instance, delay voting in Kampala for hours on end when Kampala is the distribution Centre of all materials and other logistics. In some constituencies, wrong ballot papers were sent which had candidates names transposed and this affected the one whole District. Anyway a lot of deliberate activities took place to justify the move towards rigging.
The other mechanism to rigging was through the shutdown of the Internet throughout the country for very unexplained reasons by the State. A lot of foreign media houses and individuals were barred because they wanted to cover their( government )evil tracks towards rigging.
Something to learn however, was the absence of voting booths as in Zambia. Voting boxes were in the open ground and this I thought was wonderful and copyable. Voting booths have been used to cheat because some voters who are illiterate sought help from compromised polling assistants “ who assisted by voting for the candidates of their ( assistants) preferences “. We need to adopt such a system in Zambia.
There are other pointers however that this particular election was totally anti M7. This can be seen from the results of the elections.
The Vice President, of all the people, was the first casualty followed by a good number of ministers up to about 35 of them. This means the government had been removed and this is a great shame to say M7 won the Elections. The opposition party, NUP, says it has evidence to prove its claims of fraud.
Despite the massive deployment of military and security officers, people didn’t fear but turned out massively if only to remove M7 at all costs. When aggrieved people decide nothing stops them to have what they want and fear is removed. Remember what happened in Malawi recently. When the Police wanted to act funny, the Army intervened by stopping the Police being abusive to its own people. In one case police men were bitten by soldiers just for them to be part of the masses.
The Uganda situation might be different but there are reasons to believe that the Army around this election in Uganda was divided. They are divided just because M7 has become too greed and nepotistic. He had brought in his son as an in -charge of a Special force above other deserving senior Generals and colonels. Mind you, there are more Colonels at the top than Generals who are close to men. They’re seeing all this rubbish of bringing his close relatives in the Army with a view that the family rules for life after him ; M7, and therefore they remain unhappy. This will be his downfall.
Secondly Bobi Wine remains holed up in his house together with his family for fear that if left loose he might incite a countrywide insurrection rendering the country ungovernable. Many of his influential figures remain unaccounted for. It appears too he scored heavily with MPs.
What is the major lesson for Africa here. Leaders must never be allowed to overstay in power for than one minute when time is up no matter how good they have performed. Obama was a loved President but time came and he exited. When leaders begin to amass wealth, become corrupt, tribal, nepotistic and arrogant they must be removed quickly within the first term and immunity removed for possible prosecution. The constitutions ,in Africa, must be rigid and followed to the letter. All oaths must be to the people and country, and not to an individual, as is the case with the US Constitution.