As the political and media landscape in Uganda is evolving through the use of social media platforms such as X, Facebook, Instagram, among other streaming platforms that keep sprouting, candidates can appeal to a number of people through debates to shape political discourse.
Morden leadership is a serious and complicated responsibility of our present times with lots of pressure, demands and daily public scrutiny. Therefore, it must be left to competent individuals who are smart thinkers, ready to articulate on various subjects to serve the interest of our ever demanding audiences.
The debate would be an ideal framework to prepare candidates of modern times to face such pressure with immediate answers in today’s advancing world where there is no room for mistakes, mediocre, failure or sympathy.
According to our history, leaders then did not entertain political, moral, social and economic questions into their leadership, they would rather eliminate a question by killing, torturing and exiling it than answering one. However, with today’s technological advancements under the use of social media, the questions on any subject, inquiries, and exhibitions could fly from anywhere, loud and clear.
The existing law governing election in Uganda is that, once a candidate is nominated by the Electoral Commission, the next stage is campaign, characterised by noises of music until the eve of Election Day. This does not give Ugandans enough time to compare and contrast policies of different candidates, examine candidates’ manifestos or even interrogate them. Only a few who care would sponsor airtime on TV to defend their manifesto.
It is the dream of every voter to have their candidate nominated for an election. However, the undecided voters have no choice whatsoever on whom to cast their votes for. Unlikely in the USA where presidential election is centred on two political parties for a presidential candidate, Uganda has a different political space where since the election is under multiparty political dispensation. This way, debates could have a significant impact in shaping the political discourse, giving an impression to undecided voters to have a choice and could also influence voters to vote for quality rather than quantity brought by the political waves.
The last presidential debate in Uganda took place in 2016, where incumbent President Museveni snubbed the first debate citing that it was for school children but he participated in the second one. That debate attracted international audiences such as BBC, Al Jazeera and the Ugandans in the diaspora via live streaming on social media of twitter now X and Facebook. The last 2021 election did not have a presidential debate, many people were not bothered on whom to cast their votes for but rather voted under the influence of a political wave.
Electoral laws should be amended to include conducting and managing debates to be aired on national television and radios among the candidates for all-elective positions. Failure to participate in a given debate must result in serious consequences such as cancellation of the nomination and removal from ballot.
The fundamental relevance of election debates would be to attract voters to participate in their civic duties. In the last general election, only about 11 million Ugandans out of the 18million eligible voters, decided our current leaders. This rather low turn up could foretell how many Ugandans have lost interest in the general election, a trend I believe could be checked with public debates for candidates.
The second important relevance could spin around policy. Debate would change the paradigm from policy talkers to performers and critical thinkers. Debate is about critical thinkers to give audience answers. We have on numerous occasions observed that some MPs promise one thing and do the other, or not do anything at all in their constituencies. Many could even complete the five years term without saying a word on the floor of parliament. Surely one cannot keep such a demanding job feeding on tax payers’ money without offering us an explanation in a simple interview. So, debates would prepare candidates for public speeches since their role demands to speak and in the interest of justice, if a leader cannot speak on the floor of parliament, where then do they present the views of their constituents? What then do they do? Attending burials in their constituencies? One wonders.
Debates would also invite candidates to discuss the hot current topics in the country spinning from human rights issues, governance, rule of law among others and how candidates would resolve them. For example, in the recent debate for the Kawempe by-election, where one of the candidates was tasked to speak about the amendment of UPDF Act to have civilians arraigned before the military court, if such a bill found him in parliament. The candidate did not have a clue about the question but rather answered in a flimsy way that he would increase the salaries of the men in uniform. When another candidate was asked the number of villages in the constituency, he had no clue about it. These are red flags for me signifying incompetence that such candidates are not prepared, have not researched and are not ready to lead and they may not even know the role of the Member of Parliament but rather joined politics to make money.
These and many more are the consequences of today’s regime where incompetent leaders bribed their way to parliament to eat, wasting five years of tax payers’ money. Debates would weed out such incompetence.
Debates would also help media houses in shaping the political discourse, borrowing from the USA 2024 Presidential debates with the introduction of live fact checking. Fact checking is a tool for holding candidates accountable for their statements so that they do not mislead voters on false information using AI tools. It is evident in Uganda’s political space that almost all candidates have either lied or provided voters with misleading, false information therefore fact checking would be important in Uganda’s election history to influence public understanding of events to enhance accountability and vote responsible.
Most of the universities teaching Law in Uganda have already captured a provision under their student’s constitutions to include debates for candidates in all positions.
I can assure you as a former participant in such debates that debates influence voters’ opinion, promotes research, promotes critical thinking and encourages lively participation of both the voters and their candidates to work hard on themselves.
Debates also improve on one’s confidence and analytical skills since candidates would invest time into research not to be caught off guard. This is a serious cause for concern of our modern democratic freedom, national pride to have a law that promotes and encourages debate among the future leaders of our country to serve the ever-increasing public demands and international image altogether.
The Uganda Law Society, which serves as a bar association for lawyers in Uganda is an example of the presidential debates. Every time they vote for a new leader, there is a debate, such debates are crucial in guiding the public on legal matters and contentious political topics and public confidence. In addition, the debate serves as check and balances for candidates’ relationship with the state, the future of the law, human rights issues, governance and public trust in the country and therefore it matters a lot to the legal professions if one articulates issues with confidence.
Debate presents both opportunities and challenges. For the incumbents, it is an opportunity to maintain their lead by avoiding major mistakes and reinforce their campaign core messages to sustain voters’ confidence, especially if they delivered. In contrast, it is a challenge for the underdogs as they should work hard to draw attention of the voters highlighting incumbents’ weakness.
In conclusion, political debates remain essential components of our modern democratic era, offering candidates to present their opinion, challenge opponents and engage with their followers actively. Their influence shapes public opinions in a significant way. In this era of modern technology and political polarization on social media, debate will cut through the noise and provide voters with a clear comparison of candidates who would serve and lead our country and weed out incompetent leaders who cannot face the camera to articulate matters of national importance.
The writer is a lawyer and Businessman
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