By Matata Mercy
I have been asking myself a thought provoking question for sometime now.
Image credit:Trump at a rally by Gemini.
And the question is, what is the best way to govern a country or how should the people who decide to participate in the act of politics behave?
May be the best way to frame this question would be, how should a person who is suitable for leadership behave?
But still this doesnot bring out the true insight on what I actually want to tell my readers because we have seen people who behave contrary to what we believe leaders should and have been able to take up some top political positions in society.
We have seen politicians who have been engaged in scandalous acts but still have risen out of that to gain power.
Take an example President Donald Trump, after being accused of sexually harassing women and not only that but also storming the Capitol Hill after an election loss.
This controversial politician called Donald Trump managed to rise up out of the ashes to become president of United States for the second time.
In modern politics, integrity issues are thrown aside and compromised politicians are allowed to rise up and take offices.
For the case of Uganda, the cost of being a politician is becoming abnormal and expensive.
People are using billions of shillings to get elected into political positions and a bulk of this money is used to bribe voters and also sometimes even the polling agents on the polling day.
Politics in Uganda has turned into a do or die game, either we win or we win.
Apart from the bribery allegations that litter politics, intimidation is also a strong characteristic of some politicians where we can see in some constituencies guns have been waived at supporters and even shots fired.
We have seen security personell like police and army deployed in areas where the political temperature has risen to high levels.
This could only be reduced according to some stakeholders by the people holding guns and nothing else.
It is so sad that we need guns to exist in a democratic process that should be free and fair.
In these situations, the culprits of all these atrocities find themselves victorious and we always wonder why?
May be because people fear those who handle power with an iron hand.
But we have also seen situations where people decided to rise up against those with guns and in the process installed new governments like it happened in Sudan and Libya where President Muamar Gaddafi was overthrown.
I do believe it is not fear but only that the time has not come for people to say enough is enough.
So how can politics be done properly?
Truth betold, it is hard to provide a great script for the politicians to follow but I think people involved should be able to use their reasoning and intuition to figure out what is right or wrong?
For example, is it okay to beat up people to intimidate them so that they can vote for you, my reasoning says no.
But some politicians do it and win elections, and that doesnot make it right.
In other words, following the right principles, principles that tell your soul that what Iam doing is okay is what true politicians should do.
This algorithm that I have invented is what we should use while doing politics and it also involves accepting a loss when you do not succeed in winning elections.
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