By Jacob Waiswa Buganga
It is election season in Uganda and other parts of the World.
It is time for prospective leaders to contest for power to serve citizens and experience 'successful' careers in politics.
There is one issue for sure that prospective leaders never mention: the fierce search for jobs and survival, or at least be recognised and open new opportunities for future appointments. They are like any other citizens who chose different avenues to find sources of livelihood.
Service to one's country has been most noble since the introduction of formal democracy around the World. However, it has had a sharp twist in recent years, when individual ambition to exercise power before others has proven stronger aspiration than the real desire serve and change lives of fellow citizens. The rhetoric is citizens' concern, yet in practice, concerns about the self matters most.
Museveni (above) at one of the international press interviews revealed the truth about what and for whom he really stood for since coming to power in 1986
His statement on being a servant of his children and grand children only did not affect support he had and still enjoys, because of vested interests supporters have in his rule, as protection of business interests and enjoyment of favours in case of any threat to such interests.
While everyone has a duty to determine a leader of his or her choice, over time, those in power have restricted citizens' efforts to decide who that person should be, and even influenced decisions against national values. This has not gone on without opposition. The question though is: how effectively organised, knowledgeable, skilled, and experienced are they? Even with the experience they have, have they learned anything, or are simply time-wasters?
Despite the limited success at changing leadership, very costly elections are organised every 5 and exhausted voters asked to actively participate. It is costly in terms financial resources spent, lives maimed or lost, and further deterioration of the quality of life of citizens. But, then, it goes on and on.
If loss of lives is the cost for a successful election contest, of what relevancy is such an election, when millions continue to live in poverty and social services are limited in quality and access? An election should be one, not a game or joke as it has proven to be in recent years. In fact, lowly voices argue that, other than run costly and unproductive elections, it is best for those in power to invest in social services and improve citizens' quality of lives. A section of the opposition, noteable People Power/ NUP believe that any earlier efforts by the opposition was comedy, and at no time would Museveni stay in power, even after rigging elections. However, experience has so far indicated that they never live by their word and cannot be trusted. Often, NUP leader was seen escaping arrest or confrontation with security personnel, while below they can be seen without berrets or red tops, which they vowed to wear as long as they existed.
While, again, everyone may have the power to influence leadership, much of what can be seen indicate practices like vote-buying and selling, supporting incumbent to guarantee security of one's property and business dealings, voting based on perceived chances of candidate winning elections, and culture of election-rigging that ensures preservation of the statusquo.
Nevertheless, election time still provides an opportunity to turn despair into fortune, to turn hopelessness into hope, to reawaken veteran voters to play active role in elections, to organise effectively and massively towards ultimate victory, and to strategically defend people's victory with the best mechanism to successfully deter alteration of voter numbers. If any such actions are impossible for the opposition, in their respective formations, then it is better to save one's effort and those of the people, time and resources, or even avoid risks to live through destruction of livelihoods, injury or death.
As interested citizens surge to contest for leadership, voters must seek for accountability from, first; the incumbents, much of which is lived experiences; second, assess individual personality and values of political parties in relation to aspirations as masses, and probe their knowledge, skills, experiences in leadership, and abilities shown in solving past challenges. He or she should not be a leader who says one thing and does another, or one who is renowned for self-talk, self-gratification, or whose message does not make sense, and are impractical, whose talk is usual noise and meaningless.
Leadership of a country should not be about ability to excite people and shift moods from one end to another. It should be about having knowledge of the country's policies and policy gaps, from which to build from planned actions.
It should be about understanding the real needs of the population and drawing interventions to address them in the order of priorities, and on record time.
It should be about strongest desire to serve others rather than protect own interests as leader, or business interests of the individual. He or she should be a leader for all and have a national outlook, without regards to where he or she comes from.
It should be about ability to explain his or her vision and articurate clearly the very needs of the population, describe with accuracy and in a replicable and comprehensive manner how such needs will be translated into tangible goods and services, envisioned, and in a reasonable time, like within a year rather than 10 or 30 years.
It should be about a leader, who will render current generation of youths productive rather than let them expire intelletually and physically, or even face extinction without any known contribution to the country or themselves. These youths should able to leave a legacy behind for newer generations to inspired-to-aspire, as Prof. Amb. Badru Kateregga loved to say during his very arousing and memorable lectures.
It should be about a leadership that can make use of existing manpower to contribute towards the economy without undermining the integrity of the natural environment, and ensure sustainable livelihoods of families.
This leadership should guarantee families effective means to secure decent shelter, nutrious for healthy development of children, decent income, quality healthcare, and quality education for their children. There is no best guarantees for sustainable security and peace for all, including reigning leader and his expendables, as securing quality services for sustainable livelihoods and wellbeing of citizens that no weapons of mass destruction can guarantee. Instead, they are rendered dormant and non-essential, or unjustifiable to dwell on as the basis of security.
It should be about leaders, who respect life and work towards nurturing it. Otherwise, how can a fox be the shepherd or even part of the sheep? It should be elsewhere.
It should be about leaders, who have strong foresight, enough to undo impending danger, prepare in advance for undesirable scenes with high-degree risk management strategy in pursuit of ultimate goals, and put in place systems and mechanisms for safety of his or her people, including ensuring confidentiality of information sources, or one that could endanger anyone in their political parties, against the increasing uncompromising, insensitive, robotic, and reckless security agencies.
They should exercise high-degree intelligence and awareness of the dangers at-hand posed by the incumbent, enough to win confidence of citizens and faith that change is possible, while pursuing leadership and a country for all to be proud of as citizens, where future of all citizens lay and disinterested in facing racism and xenophobia in other countries, with leaders who value lives of their people and work tirelessly and meaningfully towards prosperity for all.
The author is a peace psychologist and founder of IMI-BMA
