Election Reflections

 I have to say that as the blood red sun was sunk below the horizon on voting day, my heart went down with it. So much potential here, such an opportunity for Ugandans to finally move out from under the heel of militaristic “democracy".  3000 independent observers in the country and still, the big yellow bus full of money and guns crushed all hopes under it wheels. The treasury is bankrupt, there is no secrecy around the billions distributed for favour – none whatsoever.  Across from my house I watched as Gen. Salim Saleh – Minister of Microfinance (and Museveni's brother) filled to the fences a line up of yellow tee-shirted “supporters” – handing out cash for proposals.. suitcases, carloads of the stuff, all the while surrounded by red bereted militia. Much jubilation and ululation followed a phalanx of newly pocket-stuffed loyalists on the march to the polls. Sad. Criminal.

The people are not happy with this vote. Museveni claims 68% of the vote while his closest competitor is at 26% -  an unbelievable fabrication. I’ve been here – I’ve seen the support and there are, despite that many that aren’t, many scrupulous and honest voters who want change badly, who refuse the bribes and shake their heads in shame of their brother’s heedlessness for the future of this beautiful country.

I visited many, many polling stations on voting day, moving around with my friends. Voter irregularities, names missing from polls, ghost polling stations, pre-ticked ballots, missing boxes – all of it was present here in this town. Multiply that by the breadth of the country and it’s impossible to call what occurred “free and fair”.  The most disturbing factor though, was and still is, the presence of military and police, even armored personnel vehicles here, and the Black Mambas were seen patrolling the borders. The intimidation factor was off the charts. If you were not NRM – taking the money and voting yellow, you knew very well that you had best be quiet about your support in the end, and that a spoiled ballot was as good as one for your candidate.

It’s a week past elections. The EU observers have declared their “regret” over the rigged voting and heavy presence of militia during the vote. REGRET? That’s a condemnation? The mindset behind it, that things were not as bad this time as 2006, is absurd. In 2006 there was more upheaval but that’s because it was permitted – this time Museveni has declared that anyone protesting will be arrested or worse. People are afraid; they are not happy but know well that blood will spill if they demonstrate. The AU on the other hand has heavily condemned this election process saying;:

  

"Four million voters were allowed to vote without proper voter identity. Mr Museveni strategically changed the order of his names to appear at a strategic position on the ballot paper. We are aware that he has done this in previous elections."

In their official preliminary statement, the AU observers noted the deployment of the armed forces, the police and militias during the elections, an action that they said "could have impacted negatively on the process of elections."

Meanwhile, Human Rights Network- Uganda (HURINET), an outfit of human rights activists, says that although the elections were peaceful, they marred by irregularities and had several gaps in as far as the doctrine of democracy is concerned. Some of the irregularities cited in the report are: intimidation of party/ candidates agents, ballot stuffing and harassment and intimidation of voters by security officers. The election observer mission yesterday said President Museveni had an unfair advantage over other presidential candidates. The mission chairperson, Mr Gitobu Imanyara, told the BBC on Monday that the Electoral Commission (EC), in many instances, could not be distinguished from the NRM. "The Electoral Commission allowed one candidate to appear on the ballot paper putting on a hat," he told the BBC. "The candidate, Yoweri Museveni, used this unfair advantage in campaigns through phone calls which were made to would-be voters asking them to ‘vote for the old man with a hat," Mr Imanyara told the BBC.

While it is incumbent on civil society organizations and national entities to safeguard their election processes, when there’s only one fox in the hen house and he’s armed to the teeth, it becomes virtually impossible to uphold the tenets of democracy.

This has not passed though, quietly, as some thought. The fallout came yesterday when many either refused to vote in the Mayoral campaigns or demanded a fair vote. Kampala saw much violence and claims of rigging and the people who failed to speak up during the presidential elections are madder than hell,  and despite being cracked down on by the military and police, are voicing dissension. The Mayoral vote was duly cancelled.

Further, the opposition presidential candidates have banded together to call for peaceful street demonstrations. It remains now for Ugandans to decide if 5 more years of the old man is worth it or not to enact bloodshed and mayhem in the streets.

I am heading to Kampala tomorrow for a few days before heading home. I wonder what will come of all this. It may be safer that I leave at this time, but as my nature dictates, I would love to see how it all plays out. I hope for the sake of safety and security that things remain calm, for this man will not go down without a fight and unlike Egypt or Tunisia, this army will not back down…  watching Libya and Cote d’Ivoire seems the more likely outcome. As he said in the campaign.. paraphrased – I came in with the gun, I’m not going out on a paper.  

Mangos and Weird Things

Walking around from village to village finishing off some research the other day we come upon a friend climbing with a stick to purchase the highest mangos from the tree. He climbs, he pokes and mangos rain down upon us, huge, hurtling missiles. We laugh as everybody scoops up the precious fruit.  Bosco buys a jack fruit so big it nearly tips him off the back of his bicycle. I chastise him for it as the heat is sizzling and we have a long day in front of us, but he really wants it, and so on we go with the heat beating down, the dust in our eyes and the fruit weighing us down.

Later I sit under a tree with the Local Council leaders and they ask me about  my country. We are sitting under a mango tree. I remark that those mangos would sell for a good penny in my country and suddenly the scheme to export mangos to Canada seems a great idea until the freight, labour, export fees, custom brokers etc. take their due. The old men settle for having a great mango tree to shade them from the baking sun.

Walking along, the most magnificent tree takes my breath away, it’s a mango tree.

On my way home, I buy some mangos and they are all the sweeter for the connection we’ve made today.

My friend just returned from the Congo. He does some funny, funny business between here and there as he puts it. He tells me about a man he sees on the street just over the border there. The man cannot walk. He has been accused of witchcraft and they have cut the tendons behind his knees and at his heels. It’s horrible. Some relatives come to feed him but he is stuck there on that road now.

The Congolese cut holes in prisoners heels to run the chains through instead of handcuffs. The Chinese got nothing on them for torture.

Can you imagine it will cost me $70USD to go to the Congo  for one day? I had no idea there was a visa entry fee to hell.

The election weirdness does not abate. The other night opposition posters were torn from the streets at gunpoint in front of everybody. This is getting to be serious business. The German embassy has warned citizens here not to travel 5 days before or after the elections. The streets are filled with posters and trucks and blaring vuvuzelas and loudspeakers and people carrying tree fronds and whistles and dancing and ululating and bikes zipping up and down and the EU is here to observe and so in 8 days we shall see what comes. 

The power has been mostly off for 3 days now and it’s bloody annoying. Everything in the fridge got thrown out today. The computer had no power source, nor the phone. Load shedding gets old.

It’s grimy hot now, steamy, sizzling, brain frying hot. I wash my own clothes in the shower and by the time I’m done I need a rest. Energy economy gets you through the day. I sleep in the day sometimes – that’s a really weird thing for me.

I've decided I really don't like okra.. is it even a proper vegetable?

Weird things don’t seem weird anymore. It may be time to pack up and head home soon.

Hunger, Politics and Melancholy

Hungry people see everything in a room and in the vicinity. I have a friend who visits me often and I always know when he is hungry for his eyes move restlessly about the room, over my person, into the corners and become downcast.  And even though I know it is food he is seeking, (we both know) he never says he is hungry. While I always ask him if he’s hungry, it’s at these times that it’s hardest because he knows he has to say yes. The pride it must take when you haven’t eaten all day not to tell your close friend that you are hungry is immense. I cannot imagine. Indeed he has asked me if I could imagine.. what it’s like not to have a shilling, a piece of bread or the option to eat or not eat.. I cannot. I do not want to and it pains me that he can.. in fact that he lives it, and I despair that I must soon go and leave him to some hungry days. But I know him and he is resourceful and will survive as always.

One thing I’ve learned is that I am only a stopgap, not a saviour and not the answer to anybody’s problems. But these are truly the times that bring the bottom billion home to me, that they are no longer theoretically abstract, they are my friends and they would give me their last crust of bread and more if I needed it, and I cannot say that for any one friend I have at home, as dearly as I love them and they me. We do not understand this sense of community that poverty breeds for survival. We also cannot imagine what hunger is, what it is to try to find a dollar – less than – to stave it off. I no longer have to imagine. It’s all right there in his eyes.

And it’s politics man. Hunger is politics. In a country of bounty, of fruit and fertility and cassava and minerals .. there is no need for that hunger. West Nile is a punished region.. starved for representation, starved for power, starved for industry and employment…starved. Chock full of idle youth and lapsed programs without political will for wealth sharing, Arua is interesting on many fronts. It’s close to the Congo and Sudan borders, a trucking trade route – a lot of things going for it, but it’s largely ignored by the capital and the ruling NRM party. It feels like “let them eat cake” in this region and there is a simmering here. There is hostility and there is political activism and there is palpable anger at the unfairness of the system. And at the heart of it are the youth, young men mostly, as women’s roles are pretty strictly defined with days spent serving men and babies.. who has time for activism when your day starts at 4am and ends after midnight? Yes, it’s the boys, hungry boys, who idle away, who plot and complain and follow every political campaign truck that throws them a shilling to march along. And the pent up energy and frustration and anger emerge as they make their way through the streets seldom knowing just what it is they are advocating for or against. They just want food and work and self-determination.. they want someone to help them realize their own potential to channel that energy into prosperity. Isn’t that what we all want from our politics?

This has been going on in Uganda for the past 2 months and the momentum towards the elections on February 18^th will hopefully be positive and violence free. But I can tell you, like Egypt’s long sitting Mubarek and Cote d'Ivoire's Gbagbo, this leader does not want to leave and intimidation factors are mounting. Last week the headlines read: “Police arm heavily ahead of elections” and went on to say that traffic came to a standstill as a convoy of teargas vans snaked through Kampala. Officially the line is that the trucks (12 teargas, pepper spray and water cannon vehicles) were ordered (as part of a consignment of 50 plus vehicles including troop carriers, high tech – anti riot gear etc.) and budgeted for “some time back”.. right .. timing is everything. The message is clear.

Yesterday Dr. Kizza Besigye, the biggest competition in the presidential race was in Arua to campaign. Hundreds of supporters crowded the streets, boda-bodas revved and raced up and down, people sang and danced and marched by the hundreds past my door. I took a tally.. the majority of revelers and noise makers and truck chasers were under voting age and male. A harbinger perhaps. Research in Kenya and post election violence in 2007 evidenced the majority of offenders were under voting age young men.

An aside on this .. at the same time as FDC leader Besigye was scheduled to hold his rally, the NRM party purchased 8 cows (to feed the crowd) and took them to a local hotel and rounded up local musicians to stage a party to pull supporters away. It kind of backfired though as people attended the rally and THEN showed up for food..

African politics – never boring. While I’ve had a pretty tough go lately with my NGO, research difficulties, health, and a few other issues, I am hanging in here until the elections are done. Having a front row seat to the spectacle, the tactics, the power struggle is priceless and well worth the dime.

There’s a nasty African wasp flying around my head as I write this. They are ugly and menacing and I have 3 nests of them living in the window alcove between the screen and me. Bugs.. they like me. Malarial mosquitos, typhoid bacterium, mango flies and any number of spiders, flies and miscellaneous, they’ve all had their fill of me .. and me of them. These I won’t miss, nor the scorching heat of the dry season nor the sudden silence as power cuts steal the food from the fridge and the cool from a fan.. or the Afro-pop that ceaselessly pounds through the night and into my dreams. I love the music; it’s the never-ending-ness of it that irks.

Winding down to head home at the end of the month, there is much I will miss… greetings everywhere, from everyone. The “if it’s broke, I can fix it” attitude -  nothing is thrown away – all is salvageable for one thing or another. The colours and the sauntering gait of the women as they make their way to the market and home with gravity defying merchandise perched on heads supported by strong, fine necks. The expression: YOU ARE WELCOME .. always, always – said with heart and feeling. My dear companions, supporters and friends.. Monday, Ben, Bosco, Sally, Beatrice and all the wee kids who make sure every day that I am fine and that I have food and comfort and am included as family.

And mangos, and red sunsets and wet season when the earth shakes from thunder and the rain is a solid sheet of water soothing the dry, red earth, and bananas and boda-boda rides and riders and the flowers and honey and babies and night skies full of stars uncuttered by electric interference, and the way that one day can seem like 5, and the bicycle traffic and the spirit of survival and progress and passion .. and so much more.