Ugandans trickled into polling stations across the country on Thursday to vote in a landmark referendum on restoring multiparty democracy after nearly 20 years.
Amid opposition boycott calls and apparent widespread apathy, turnout was light as polls opened at 7am local time, although observers believe voters will endorse Uganda’s most sweeping political reforms in a generation.
In the capital, streets were quiet with little vehicle or pedestrian traffic and few were taking advantage of a national holiday declared by the government to boost participation, news agency AFP’s correspondents said.
However, officials said they were confident voters would come out to decide on whether to repeal a ban on political parties imposed by President Yoweri Museveni, who now supports its removal.
”There are no problems reported so far,” said Sam Rwakaroojo, the secretary of the National Election Board. ”We have been moving around town and the information we are getting is that people are lining up to vote.”
Random checks of numerous polling stations in Kampala, though, found no lines and only small groups of voters casting ballots, while radio reports from the countryside indicated that turnout was also low in rural areas.
”There is an ‘I don’t care attitude’ in the population now and apathy,” said Jalia Mutwari, a resident of the capital who did vote.
Kampala voter Anatoli Muleterwa said many Ugandans were confused by the referendum as it had not been adequately explained, but he believed it was his civic duty to vote.
”It is important in deciding important issues in the country,” he said. ”I voted based on the feeling of the majority and that feeling is that we open up political space.”
‘Imperative’ to vote
With a palpable lack of public enthusiasm, Museveni’s Movement organisation — which would lose its monopoly on Ugandan political life if the referendum is approved — exhorted voters not to stay home.
”The referendum may be a foregone conclusion … however, it is imperative that everybody expresses his or her view regardless of which political divide one falls on,” the Movement-run New Vision newspaper said in an editorial.
The opposition says the reform backed by Museveni, who imposed the ban after coming to power in a 1986 coup, is merely a facade behind which the former guerrilla leader is trying to hide his alleged ambition to rule for life.
Museveni — who has until now defended his ”no-party democracy” system, maintaining that parties were divisive and responsible for Uganda’s ills under the disastrous regimes of Idi Amin and Milton Obote — dismisses such claims.
Yet the proposal is viewed with suspicion by many, notably the ”G6” bloc of six opposition groups that are barred under current rules from having more than one office and fielding candidates in elections.
On Wednesday, the G6 lost a last-minute legal bid to halt the referendum, which it maintains is an unnecessary expense and illegal, as political rights are fundamental and should not be subject to voter approval.
Earlier this month, it unsuccessfully fought to prevent Parliament from adopting a controversial constitutional amendment scrapping presidential term limits that will allow Museveni to seek re-election next year.
Foreign donors who provide nearly half of Uganda’s annual Budget have also expressed growing concern about the policies of Museveni, once a darling of the international community.
Major Western democracies that are normally vocal proponents of political liberalisation in developing countries such as Uganda have been unusually silent on Museveni’s support for the referendum.
About 8,5-million Ugandans are registered to vote at 17 000 polling stations nationwide where authorities have stepped up security to forestall potential disruptions — particularly in the north, which has been devastated by a brutal war between the government and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army.
Polls close at 5pm with first results expected early on Friday and final returns on Saturday. — Sapa-AFP