Kaboha
Citizens of Fort Portal Tourism City have expressed strong concern and condemned the increasing monetization of Ugandan politics, especially during campaigns. They claim the practice undermines democracy, promotes corruption, and bribery, yet deters the country from conducting a free and fair election.
What they say
Linda Sharan a resident of Bukwali ward central division of Fort Portal Tourism City says the practice is already being witnessed with candidates spending large sums of money on bribing voters, fundraisings, and gifts, while political parties have also asked for huge sums of money as nomination fees.
Fred Mwebembezi, a journalist and activist attributes the persistence of poor service delivery in communities to incompetent leaders who were voted by money influence.
According to the Global Press Journal report of 2021 after Uganda’s presidential and parliamentary elections, individuals that contested for Member of Parliament spent over 1 billion shillings on their campaigns.
According to Alliance for Finance Monitoring, an organization that monitors election spending, also reported that during the 2021 pre-election campaigns, parliamentary aspirants spent nearly 500 billion shillings in November and December 2020 alone.
Most of the money went into administrative costs, followed by voter enticement activities such as purchasing groceries for voters, fundraisings, and cash donations.
