{"id":717,"date":"2019-03-04T16:53:25","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T16:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsm.prolerat.org\/?page_id=717"},"modified":"2019-10-18T00:41:49","modified_gmt":"2019-10-17T23:41:49","slug":"ugandas-politics-of-alcohol-soap-salt-and-sugar","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/ugandas-politics-of-alcohol-soap-salt-and-sugar\/","title":{"rendered":"Uganda’s politics of alcohol, soap, salt and sugar?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article has been reproduced from the <\/strong>Socialist Standard<\/strong><\/em> (October 2001), the monthly journal of The Socialist Party of Great Britain <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

At last, like the presidential elections, the parliamentary elections are over. This was a month of violence, harassment, intimidation and torture on one side and merrymaking (in a form of \u201cgifts\u201d\u2014alcohol, salt pieces of soap, sugar and cash in exchange for votes) on the other hand. The campaigns attracted many people, especially the rallies of those candidates who were well and easy on their pockets. Here, like anywhere else, the standard by which men and women are judged is their material possessions. Even if you have ideas or initiative, if you are broke you must go without. Those without money dwell in the darkness of inescapable poverty (despite being in the midst of potential plenty), ever wrestling with the torment of survival in a world dominated by the fast buck. So it would have appeared a miracle for a poor but reasonable person to sail through and make it to parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, there was controversy when the president turned \nout and started campaigning in favour of some candidate and campaigning \nagainst some others on grounds that the favoured ones were \n“pro-movement”. In some parts of the country the electoral process was \nmilitarised. This was mostly in places where supporters of multiparty \npolitics were contesting along with the historicals of president’s \nmovement system and\/or his personal friends. This resulted in violence \nwhere some people lost their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most contestants bribed voters to the extend of buying the poor needy\n voters, blankets, mattresses, bicycles and hoes, in the expectation \nthat out of which excitement the poor voters would eventually not resist\n voting for such candidates even if it was clear that the candidate was a\n non-performer. This is not surprising given that recently Transparency \nInternational ranked Uganda as the third most corrupt country in the \nworld. In fact some candidates went as far as spending over U shs 900 \nmillions (\u00a3360,000). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most manifestos centred on poverty, as if the contestants had a \nformula to eliminate it or as if they had just realised that they were \nliving with poor people. Their opportunity was to capitalise on this \nbiting poverty in most Uganda’s homes. Their elaboration of how poverty \ncould be eliminated was insincere on the candidates’ part, given that \npoverty cannot be eliminated under capitalism and especially in a \ncountry like Uganda where a majority don’t have enough and the right \neducation and civilisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was talk about health programmes, education, security and peace\n yet in some places these rallies could not take place because of \ninsecurity \u2013 due to rebel activities. The candidates came with \nprogrammes for bringing health to all yet since about twenty years ago \nthe Ministry of Health has been running an advert in the name of \u201cHealth\n for all by the year 2000\u201d. This is 2001 and most people here in Uganda \nare still dying of curable diseases such as typhoid, dysentery and \nmalaria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So their manifestos seem to be disabled ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then we come to voting day. Most of the candidates and their \nsupporters saw this as a day determining between life and death. They \nbecame aggressive so as to win the election. Winning indeed would be the\n only way by which they could recover the money used in bribing voters. \nOnce elected they could get access to public funds and embezzle it. They\n could, as well, get high salaries and allowances. On polling day voters\n who supported poor candidates and those candidates who were not \nfavoured by the president were harassed and intimidated. Some were even \nrefused voting but the supporters of the favoured and rich candidates \nwere allowed to vote more than once, to vote in other people’s names \u2013 \nthe dead and the absent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uganda is a country that has been infested with wars before and after\n the so-called independence. It seems here the needs of democracy are \nplanted on unfertile grounds. Most folk here don’t have a proper \nunderstanding and education of the world we live in, capitalistic \nsociety based on profit and competition, and the next stage of \nsociety\u2014socialism that will depend on contribution to society by \nindividuals based on individuals’ ability and where individuals take \nfrom society according to their self-determined needs. No ruler and no \nruled, then and only then would be true democracy, a proper voting \nprocess and would there be value of the vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weijagye Justus<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Back to the Global Economy index<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Back to the World Socialist Movement home page<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article has been reproduced from the Socialist Standard (October 2001), the monthly journal of The Socialist Party of Great Britain At last, like the presidential elections, the parliamentary elections are over. This was a month of violence, harassment, intimidation and torture on one side and merrymaking (in a form of \u201cgifts\u201d\u2014alcohol, salt pieces of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-717","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=717"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2527,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/717\/revisions\/2527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}