Entebbe ’11 .. Who Is Leading The Polls?

The bells are ringing , the town talk is on, hearts anxious  and the political chorus with a “Change” word is  bubbling from all sides. However, it’s so a worrying that the masses of Ugandans are uncertain of who is going to be the next President. It has been 22 years ever since the National Resistance Army rebels  under their National Resistance Movement Umbrella in what could be described most successful rebel movement that left ten of thousands lives dead with no tangible reparations to the victims families took over the once acclaimed pearl of Africa. Though some people may claim that this is the best   political rein that they have witnessed in their lives and since the world judges us on what we destroy not that which we build, I would say there is also a big percentage in dissatisfaction and damage that this particular system  sew, watered and now harvesting that cannot be under estimated.

However,  as the race gets closer, it is still unpredictable which names shall we have on this ballot. The political ballot looks just the same as that for the Pearl Of Africa Music Awards where the nominees for the artist of the year ballot has forever seen these three names; Chameleon, Bebe Cool and Bobi Wine. The difference between the two races is that sometimes the awards get more predictable as the year goes by unlike in the political race where by even up to now  the incumbent Mr. Museveni  Kaguta  Yoweri is still leading the polls despite  the fact that he has worked so hard with “careerists” team to see the country go down in flames.

The root cause of the above can be directed to the inconsistency within the opposition block. The opposition block has failed to find someone strong enough with a nationwide credibility. Though insiders from different political parties would claim that their failure is due to insufficient funds to carry out successful political, social and economic awareness as regards to the national status quo, I would like to point out that another failure to the opposition block can be traced deeply within greed and sectarianism within different political parties and this has made it hard for them settle inner differences and the consequence is failure to find a unified opposition voice.

If we are to take a look at Forum for Democratic  Change (FDC) the most sounding opposition political party as of now, it  hasn’t announced or elected a potential  candidate as it is still having their eyes on Mr.Kiiza Besigye who has lost two times to Mr. Museveni. However, as far as  I know, the FDC constitution states that a candidate would stand for only two terms but the question  is; what happens in the case that the candidate loses in those two attempts?  I think that one can’t lead the quest for national democracy if one still has inner party issues as regards to succession and with this I would like to move that it’s high time Mr. Besigye endorsed someone else from his party before it splits.

The second potential political party would be the Democratic Party which has also for so long nursed a long sectarian feud based on religious beliefs and ethnicity. This has also halted their process to come up with someone to stand on its ticket come 2011. Where as the Baganda have a popular saying that goes “Edini teyajja kutwawula naye kutugatta”, which can be directly translated as “the coming of religion was solely to unite us not separate”  and if this is the case for religion, I guess there is need for such another popular rhetoric to deter  ethnical stereotyping  within political parties.

In conclusion, Uganda at such a time needs an “Obama”  like kind of person to rescue it come 2011, someone who is ready to give the country a new vision and not only sing “Change” but also portray in within his/her works. Ugandans might risk another five years of an opportunist or careerist in case the ballot doesn’t change faces like it happens in the PAM Awards as I said earlier. I also believe that there are a number of political parties and independent candidates that might  see such a time as an opportunity for their visibility but  I suppose this is not what the people need this time. It’s about time someone came with a national reconciliation strategy. And where as we have been having a long time tribal, economic and political differences, in times like this when the country is getting ragged, it should be a collective effort based on a common national cause that we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, iron out major issues and move on!!!!

Please let me know if you have any good names that might appear on the ballot so that we can discuss about them next time.