By Didas Gasana
Well, not a small number of my friends have been asking what i make of the just concluded Ugandan presidential, parliamentary and local elections partly because i cautioned on May 11, 2015 that Uganda is a country to watch, whilst our eyes were fixed on Burundi.
The truth of the matter is that in political dispensations where the ruling party and the state are fused together- in a parastic not symbiotic relationship; one would be a talented idiot to expect “change”, whether the “change” is deserved or NOT.
Secondly, Uganda is a microcosm of so many nation states across the board. While your eyes are/were fixed on Uganda, the same things were/are happening in Niger and Congo Brazzaville; with a minimal exception in the Central African Republic (ironically-given that it is under UN protection). It is the same thing we will see in Benin Republic, Djibouti, Chad, Zambia, DRC; but probably with minimal exceptions in Comoros and Ghana- all in this year 2016.
Thirdly; this brings us to one of the most fundamental questions- whether Africans really have a fundamental problem that defies all forms of science and reason. There was a lanky soldier who stood at the gates of a certain nation’s parliament in 1986 and perfetcly articulated Africa’s problem but thirty years later, he too got contaminated– and, like i said earlier, he and the nation he represents are simply a microcosm.
But while we battle this riddle that continues to defy human faculties of reason, and till we get an answer, we should seriously think of (1) Passing a legislation that forces the incumbents to relinquish office before the elections. (2). Privatising national electoral commissions. (3). Lobby that the UN sets up an affilliate agency responsible for electoral processes globally and (4) without this, we basically do away with elections and we invest the money into health care, agriculture and education. No more, no less.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/didas.gasana/posts/1221526357874781
