Uganda's Opposition Hands are tied behind the back

UNEVEN FIELDS

It is truly absurd how the Uganda Police is acting to hamper the democratic process leading to 2016 general elections. At the current manner of Operations and the operating laws such as POMA, we all agree that the Opposition have both their hands tied behind their backs.  The Police is violating the fundamental principles of Free and Fair environment associated supportive of a healthy democracy. It is important for the operators of the state to be reminded that half a democracy is not democracy at all. You cannot place a man's feet on fire, his head in a bucket of ice, his hands tied behind his back, and conclude that the man is averagely OK. Those kind of skewed analyses are better left for statisticians, not democrats.

In the last couple of months, the NRM candidates campaigned in the countryside willy-nilly. Last week, the lack of internal democracy in the Party resulted in a pandemonium at every polling station of NRM countrywide. In fact, all the malpractices attributed to previous general elections manifested. There were numerous cases of ballot stuffing with pre-ticked balloting. In Masaka, one respondent observed huge envelops of pre-ticked ballots being stuffed in the box. The rigging were so severe that results were openly switched, such that the losers became winners.

As a result, the voters rioted. NRM cards were torn, burned, peed upon or fed to the pigs; Museveni's campaign posters were torn and peed on. NRM offices were torched down and even the home of one NRM official in Luwero was gutted down by an irate NRM Arsonist.

While all these are happening in the country, the absence of the riot Police or its brutality were well noticed. The irate NRM crowd rioted undeterred until they cooled down on their own accord. Last week, the NTV captured the people in Luwengo District castigating their Chairman there. They burnt his effigies and beat up unarmed Police and agents of the Luwengo LCV who attempted to interfere.

In all these chaos and pandemonium of savagery proportion, you do not find riot police or the kind of Police macho seen around peaceful Opposition groups. Nothing!

Events of last week were near tragedy; the Police's attempted assassination of Dr Kiiza Besigye and the Leader of the Opposition were the highlights. The undressing of the women activists cast the Police in shameful shade. Then they went into fits of action, arresting the Opposition leaders for trying to establish their campaign offices. The images of Hon. Ibrahim Ssemuju Nganda with his torn suit and face behind bars; and those of  Dr Kiiza Besigye in jail conjured up an indelible legacy of undisputed tyranny for this regime.

For posterity's sake, nowhere in the history of Uganda, or Sub-Sahara Africa has a regime inhibited its Opposition and humiliated women of its nation like this NRM regime. The environment continues to exclude those with divergent views from the governance of this country. I fear excessively that if this Police brutality continues, the masses will decide to retaliate and a blood-bath will ensue.

The Electoral Commission and the Police are playing monkey games to deny the Opposition time to select its flag bearers in the lower levels of government. The Police's deliberately demands that Opposition seeks permission to campaign, or to cause a campaign gathering. This is a violation, and criminal act by the Police. The exercising of POMA during election period must be interpreted by a competent court. This is stifling our democracy. POMA already took away citizen's freedoms and handed it to the state. There must be a limit or an exception to it's application during elections. Fundamental human rights should not be subject to the State for dispensation. It is criminal. Rights are inalienable and should be protected by the state, not curtailed or dispensed by it. The Opposition groups should rethink the worth of soldiering on against a tyranny with both their hands tied behind their back.

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