Prime
Looking at voting pattern differently
Watching the bitterness President Museveni exhibited on January 17 on TV over the 2021 General Election voting pattern in Buganda, left me in a state of deep reflection.
Fast forward, under the guise of true nationalism, the President came off blazing the anti-sectarianism gun.
It is a pity and a fact of life that no one can prick his/her own eyes. A keen observer of voting patterns in Uganda over the 35-year rule of Mr Museveni, will notice that at every election, in his home district of Kiruhura, no other different presidential candidate has scored even 1 per cent.
The two times that are very glaring are the 2016 election, where candidate Museveni got nearly all the votes. During the January 14 election, other presidential candidates performed poorly in the same area.
Immediately the 2021 Presidential and Parliamentary elections results were released, the President alluded to sectarian-based voting in Buganda where the majority of voters voted for NUP’s Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine.
It took some of us by surprise considering that the region is the cradle of the NRA/M revolution to free Uganda from ‘backward’ tendencies like tribalism, religious bigotry, and others such as ‘swine leaders in Africa who overstay in power.’
In the 1996 elections, voters in Buganda shunned their own, Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere; same pattern in 2001 with Mr Mayanja Kibirige; followed by Dr Abed Bwanika in 2006, Beti Kamya and Jaberi Bidandi Ssali, in 2011, etc. But the cosmopolitan demographics of the region cannot be blamed on only one ethnic group – the Baganda.
John Santos Labeja,
[email protected]
