Pure Good Governance

It is not surprising that the Civil Society Organisations (CSO) fair has become one of the biggest annual events in Uganda where NGOs and other civil society groups showcase their products to the local, regional and international community.  Last week, I described what a CSO fair looks like here in Uganda to an Ethiopian government officer based in Addis Ababa.  And his reaction neither surprised me nor shocked me; he asked what there is for civil society to show case.  “Is it the signed ‘transport refund’ lists or is it the academic non-practical publications that they spend their energies working on? How do they showcase ‘workshops’? May be you are talking about showcasing the huge 4X4 gas guzzling automobiles that their employees ride in”.  He grinned after interjecting in a conversation that I thought was too serious to attract such presumptuous interposes.     Anyhow, just like him, many other folks think there is really northing to exhibit...

As I approached the first polling station to witness the opening of the poll I noticed something conspicuous; over fifty armed military officers, searching and questioning each voter or any one who attempted to enter the school, which housed the polling station. Four armored personnel carriers stood strategically at the four corners of the double storied primary school and at the roof-top were well positioned discreet snipers each attentively attending to their ‘state of the art’ long range rifles.  I had to stop and ask locals whether there was actually a polling station located in this school or if the education facility had been turned into a military base of sorts; it surely looked like a planning site for the ‘operation lightning thunder’.   Amidst all this, it looked like it was only me that was approaching the polling station with fears and judders; everyone else walked self-assuredly to the swam of armed security folks, got searched and proceeded ...

I had an opportunity to spend a greater part of Martyrs day reading through the President’s letter on Election Rigging in Uganda; 1961-2014 authored on 25th May 2014.  Yes, I read and re-read the letter several times just to be very sure that I understood the President correctly (many times, Mr. Museveni has cried foul over being ‘misquoted’ or ‘misinterpreted’ or even sometimes being ‘misread’.  I did not want to be part of those ‘careless’ people that ‘misread’ (in this case) the president.  The President’s letter touched on a number of important issues in respect to Uganda’s electoral processes.  At the core was the need to correct current electoral misdemeanors such as vote rigging through introducing the much alluded to computerized voting technology. As a citizen who has been keenly following the debate around electoral reforms in Uganda, I however expected to hear the President’s holistic approach in reforming the electoral system....

Something spectacular is lingering in the air and this is in respect to the 2016 elections.  Everyone is trying to make sense of what it is or better still what it will be.  The opinion polls, the political analyses, the media debates and dialogues are all part of the effort to figure out how the 2016 poll is likely to play out.   Campaign platforms are supposed to originate from real issues that confront people.  In many countries however, we have seen political figures sometimes artificially constructing the issues so that they can have seemingly ‘credible’ platforms on which to premise their campaigns.  I am talking about the irony of creating a problem so that you can provide the solution! That is just exactly what is gaining currency in many parts of the world today.   Forget about the clean authentic ancient Greek elections where those aspiring to stand for political office would spend time understanding people’s real issues.  Today, e...

On this sunny December afternoon, I decided to take a stroll from home down to the spring well. First to reconnect with childhood memoirs of fetching water, climbing mango trees, playing at the well, but also to enjoy the serenity of the avenue. Right below Kabalega Primary School is our home.     The place has an ambiance created by the mango trees that grace the sides of the sizeable path to the well.  As I took my leisurely mid-day walk, I met a good old man, a cross-generation friend – Ibona Portaz.    Ibona has been fetching water from the Kabalega spring well for the last forty years and does it for a living.  Ibona last saw me when I was a little boy riding my tricycle around the village in the company of my big brother.  Immediately after the greeting formalities, Ibona engaged me in a conversation that vividly brought to life lost time and evoked real childhood pleasures and pains. He reminded me of the days when a child bel...

In fields such as research, those inclined to disputing given research findings will always latch on to the ‘methodology’. In elections, however, it is overly becoming the question of the integrity of the ‘voters register’.  Since 1996, the question of how clean and credible the voters register in Uganda is has come to the fore not once or twice but several times – both from voices that take active part in the elections as voters or candidates and those that at times stand and look from a distance – the election observers. Despite the semblance of normalcy in the May 9 th 1996 Presidential elections in Uganda, hundreds of voters were turned away from the polling stations across the country on account of their names missing from the voters roll – actually, the real complaint was that their names which had originally been on the 1994 Constituency Assembly (CA) voters register had been omitted from the 1996 ‘corrected version’ of the national voters roll.  The...