Contesting
for presidency should not be equated to contesting for LC1 chair or even a
Parliamentary seat. A serious contender
for president must have the resources and that is why normally one should be
sponsored by a political party. What is
most unfortunate in the Ugandan situation is when you have an incumbent with
the ability to get resources from the consolidated fund and divert the same to
his campaign. It is this practice that
should be countered.
Given
the current situation, a part from candidate Museveni, the electorate seem to
show that they know Dr. Kizza Besigye more than other candidates. The reasons among others being:
1.
He is contesting the 4th
time for president 92001, 2006, 2011 & 2016), so people are used to him,
yet he has been spending money all along to have reached the people;
2.
There is sympathy that his votes
have in the past been stolen, may be at one time he had won given the
allegations;
3.
He has sympathy of the voters given
the way they have seen the state persecute and torture him;
4.
He has given the voters the
impression over time that he is an army man who can potentially take on the
roles after Museveni given his abilities as army man.
In
the circumstances, some people want to come up with a law that can limit the
ability of a potential presidential candidate to make his manifesto/good
intentions known. This will be wrong.
I
had wanted to stand for president of Uganda in 2016, though forces beyond have
made it impossible for me. I took time
to make a budget which could facilitate me to put up a worthy show against the
incumbent, and this was Ushs 60bn.
Justification
for the money.
Just
imagine the cost of vehicles a candidate may need to operate in 112 districts
of Uganda. If one can raise the
resources, he could have as many as a vehicle per district. The vehicles need fuel as well as repairs and
maintenance for the whole duration till after the election.
To
get the voters to know a candidate requires advertisements. What is wrong with raising say shs 5bn for
the purpose or more?
Posters
are a necessity in each election, and these may be considered at the same time
with bill boards. If one is to put 100
posters in each of the 57,000 villages in Uganda each costing shs 600, one
would need at least shs 3,420,000,000.
On
the polling day, given the 28,000 polling stations throughout Uganda, a
candidate may consider about 2 representatives per polling station. If he budget’s a minimal of shs 50,000 for
each to cover eats, transport and allowance for the day, this comes up to shs
2,800,000,000.
There
must be a budget for legal services given the cost of mitigation in the cases
that may arise before and immediately after the election.
There
must also be a budget for treatment.
More often than not, supporters get involved in accidents, and there is
need to have funds to treat them as well as contributing to burial in case of
death of immediate campaigners.
Before
a flag bearer is chosen, there is a process each political party has to go
through until it gets the delegates who choose the candidate. It is not logical to come up with a figure
for such an arrangement.
Assuming
some legislation is made regarding the ceiling to the amount of funds that can
be used in a campaign how would a situation where supporters decide to get out
of pocket funds and contribute say to printing posters, T-shirts, meeting the
cost of airtime, buying fuel and any other?
My
advice is simple, let us ensure that the incumbent does not put his fingers in
the state coffers, but leave a candidate to fund-raise to manage the size of the
budget he may have so that he is able to manage the campaign logistics.
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