With presidential candidates allowed just over 60 days to campaign in Uganda’s 146 districts, opposition parties have in the last week been concretising plans to reach far and wide in order to beat the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party in next year’s polls. The NRM itself, was the only party that launched its manifesto last week after Mr Museveni was nominated to contest for the presidency for a sixth time. The others will be doing so beginning tomorrow.
The NRM, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), the National Unity Platform (NUP) and the Democratic Party (DP) have already deployed branded vehicles to crisscross the country as part of the campaign. They have also put out huge campaign posters and banners in strategic points in major towns and along highways as part of a campaign in which public rallies have been outlawed in an effort to contain the spread of the Covid-19. Social media and mainstream media is a big part of the plan, only that it raises serious accessibility issues for different candidates.
FDC
The FDC spokesperson, Mr Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, who is also the Kira Municipality MP, told Sunday Monitor that after the party’s presidential candidate, Mr Patrick Oboi Amuriat, unveils his manifesto on Monday, he will have meetings with party leaders from the regions. The plan, Mr Ssemujju said, is for Mr Amuriat to campaign constituency by constituency. That explains the campaign tagline, “the villager is coming to your village”, which the party has been promoting since Mr Amuriat emerged as the party’s presidential candidate.
Where it will not be possible for Mr Amuria to reach the villages, party’s structures in the villages and the candidates in the constituencies will be relied upon to relay the message. The party also intends to have Mr Amuriat campaign via FM stations in all the places he will visit and to produce as many promotional materials as possible. The party also intends to defy the Electoral Commission’s (EC) directive barring the candidates from addressing public rallies. “It (Campaign) will not be very different from the campaigns we have been having, only that there shall be difficulties and challenges. We shall as much as possible be trying to organize public rallies even if they say that we cannot have them,” Mr Ssemujju said.
NUP
The spokesperson of NUP, Mr Joel Ssenyonyi, however told Sunday Monitor that whereas NUP is keen on using FM stations in various parts of the country, it is not sure that there will be no interference by government officials and supporters of the ruling NRM.
“There have been challenges, especially with the media. Before NUP, People Power was denied space on radio stations even when the airtime had been paid for. I am not sure that there will be no interference even this time,” Mr Ssenyonyi said. He said NUP will now be looking for other ways of reaching out to the electorate in a situation where public rallies are not allowed and where the Opposition is heavily disadvantaged. “It is very complicated when you are up against an incumbent who has state resources and can fly to different districts in a single day. Previously if you held a rally in say Arua, it would be likely that people from Moyo or Adjumani would come over and attend and the message would trickle down,” Mr Ssenyonyi said.
The planning, he said, is to make the campaign more pointed, with the Presidential candidate addressing a few campaign rallies in the districts and town or village hall meetings with a select few individuals in the hope that those few meetings will have ripple effect. “So we are going to target some key districts and leaders in the communities to ensure that our messages reach the people. Our interest is in those people who can influence say 1,000 people in the community,” Mr Ssenyonyi said. He said they also intend to do a lot of branding to enhance the party’s and their presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi’s visibility. To that end, Mr Ssenyonyi said the party intends to produce lots of promotional materials such as umbrellas, bandanas and stickers for vehicles.
He, however, pointed out that the police has been trying to interfere with this aspect of the campaign. “On nomination day (Tuesday last week), I was stopped as I was going to Mr Kyagulanyi’s home. They searched my car and found a few branded umbrellas and bandana’s which they confiscated. I asked them whether those had been gazette too, but they did not provide me with any answers,” Mr Ssenyonyi said.
Other NUP supporters, he said, had suffered a similar fate. He said police officers at Naguru had plucked off a sticker of one Ms Zawuda Madanda from the back of her car and warned her of arrest and possible impounding of her car if she did not remove another sticker bearing the image of Mr Kyagulanyi, which was on the bonnet. Mr Ssenyonyi added that an ambulance donated to the people of Mbale by the NUP flag bearer for the Mbale Women’s seat, Ms Robinnah Nadunga, and a Toyota Noah belonging to Mr Muhammad Segirinya, the party’s flag bearer for the Kawempe North parliamentary seat, had also been impounded for similar reasons.
But Kampala Metropolitan police spokesperson, Mr Patrick Onyango, denies any wrongdoing on the part of the police. “I have seen very many vehicles, both taxis and private vehicles with stickers of NUP, if we were targeting those with NUP stickers why are those still running. Unless they were moving in a procession, which had been outlawed by the EC, there would be no reason for the vehicles to be impounded,” Mr Onyango said.
However, the former coordinator of the Citizens’ Coalition for Electoral Democracy in Uganda (CCEDU), Mr Crispin Kaheru, thinks the EC should be doing much more in terms of protecting those who are challenging the NRM for power. He said security agencies seem to be working in the interest of the ruling NRM party. “The EC should take charge of the entire electoral environment. This should take the form of directing the engagements of security in as far as elections are concerned,” Mr Kaheru said.
DP
The DP spokesperson, Mr Opio Okoler, said the party intends to explore the use of other media platforms that are not commonly used in order to send out its message and campaign for its candidate, Mr Norbert Mao. “We shall use media talk shows and mini-rallies, but we also intend to use others like text messages and robot calls to the voters’ phones,” Mr Okoler said. Addressing himself to fears that the networks can be jammed as the election enters the home stretch, Mr Okoler said the part intends to first stages of the campaign to encourage Ugandans to download and have Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) on their phones in preparation for the worst.
ANT
The acting ANT national coordinator, Ms Alice Alaso, told Sunday Monitor that whereas the party is keen on using the media to promote its presidential candidate, Maj Gen Mugisha Muntu, and also disseminate its messages, the intensity will be determined by availability of funds. “We are planning on radio messages, town hall meetings and social media, but we have not yet concretised the plan. It is subject to fundraising and availability of funds,” Ms Alaso said.
New Uganda
Ms Beatrice Kiraso Amooti, who is helping presidential candidate Gen Henry Tumukunde drive the campaign of what they call “Renewed Uganda,” told Sunday Monitor that her candidates’ team had concluded work on a draft campaign schedule which was due to be discussed and harmonized with the schedules of other candidates with the help of the EC. The meeting was held at the EC’s offices yesterday, but we had by press time not established what transpired. Ms Kiraso, however, said her team would only out a concrete programme after that meeting. “That (meeting) will inform which radio stations, television stations or media that we use,” Mr Kiraso said.
Mr Kiraso also revealed that whereas the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic had affected the organisation’s funds raising activities, Gen Tumukunde has enough resources to work with. “It (financial situation) is tight, but I think we shall manage. We have a lot of goodwill. At the same time, we started fundraising quite early. Though the world economy took a hit from covid-19 some funds have started trickling in,” Ms Kiraso said. Ms Kiraso, however, decried what she described as “over monetisation of the politics”.
The campaigns have been heavily monetised. And it is not in aspects such as buying cars or fuelling them, but in the culture of (cash) handouts. That is the real danger to our politics,” Ms Kiraso said. However, the different approaches to the campaign have left some observers questioning the Opposition’s mission and commitment to its struggle.
Prof Paul Wangoola, who contested the Iganga North East seat on a DP ticket in the 1980 general election and beat the former UPC Secretary General, Dr Luwuliza Kirunda, argues that the Opposition does not seem to have learnt from previous elections. “There was a need to have taken stock from every election so that they organize differently. There was need for a formula for overall unity and a need for a formula for a common message and one that puts them in a class above the NRM,” Prof Wangoola argues.
