THE YEAR THAT WAS 2011

2011 came in with a lot of hope that’s to say from the number of ambitions many of us had to the excitement of ending that gruesome 2010. Regardless of where we ushered 2011 from, many of us had high hopes for 2011.

At this time, the election fever had already consumed our souls most especially that large size one by the president. The elections kicked in and we saw some character assassination and lots of money changing hands. Though much as many will have a lot to say about 2011 we at the youth link decided to sum up the year that saw the first youth forum news paper launch in Uganda.

Politics

The beginning, as I said was marred with a lot character assassination and with a fact that the presidential race was merely between two usual candidates, it would be bad not mention the constant attacks Besigye and friends had on Museveni and Museveni in turn attacking Besigye.

Just like the NRM caucus their election was much driven by money offered to voters, local leaders a lot of poor quality merchandise was made to simply honor the NRM party elections. From T-shirts to caps it was visible that the party had sunk a lot of millions in this campaign.

Fast forward to February 28^th Ugandans turned up to vote in, well, small numbers. Museveni was voted into power for the ummm (I don’t know how many times, I lose count) but he was voted into power by an overwhelming majority. The election as usual was marred by vote rigging, voters’ ignorance and allegedly ballot staffing. For the first time, this election didn’t end in courts of law as the opposition had earlier discredited the independence of the judicial system.

The parliamentary election was no surprise with NRM winning majority of the seats and a surprise northern constituency, the Kampala mayoral race became the other highlight where Ssematimba’s academic qualifications almost took centre stage or the alleged ballot staffing at the would be mayoral election days.

Then we had the post election drama starting with the walk to work campaign by the Action for Change pressure group with Besigye as the main actor, this later led to quite a number of riots with the police poorly using their black cans, you know the teargas bottles? It all climaxed when one Bwana Arinaitwe sprayed the doctor’s face with his toilet insecticide.

Then the swearing in ceremony, who could forget the overwhelming numbers on Entebbe road for Besigye’s return, Museveni truly shot himself in the foot by blocking his return a day earlier. I think this is the time he should have thought of really firing that shirt of an adviser he has, because of that ill advice, the Ugandan president became a joke on the Nairobi streets following his NTV interview in Kenya. He said Besigye had sprayed the officials with pepper and Kenyans had spent the better half of that weekend making comedy jokes and news parodies about him.

Who can even forget the swearing in ceremony at the parliament or the councilor’s broken English, that was the period, their failure to master the queen’s language made their leadership questionable.

We can’t just by pass the nullified election results, from Singi Katogole’s unexpected win to former Vice President’s clear cut win. Talking about the Vice president we can’t stop talking about the shocking cabinet Museveni announced, can you believe it had Ssebagala in it or the shock in Kakooza’s eyes after that Committee rejected him.  

Politically this year has been active one, the oil scandal, CHOGM scandal and all those corruption allegations, who could even forego the fact that they all had the Prime Minister’s name in them. Much as the parliament constantly asked the people involved to step aside to allow investigations, hon. Hillary Onek and Amama Mbabazi refused to step aside till to date.

You can’t talk about 2011 politics and live the 9^th parliament aside, first of all its run by the first woman speaker in the Ugandan history and for the first time we have a speaker who doesn’t bow down to the demands of the party. With a whole lot of Youthful MPs, Mrs. Rebecca Kadaga has made the first eight months of the Ninth Parliament very newsworthy.

2011 was a hub of activities even in the international media and politics, this year saw the world’s oldest News Of The World shutdown amidst phone tapping allegations. This same year saw the Italian prime minister and owner of Italian football side AC Milan stand down.

African dictators must have taken the year hardest since it saw the end of some regimes and demise of one, from the Arab awakening the ended the Tunisian, Egyptian and Libyan regimes with even the death of Gaddafi a self designated King of Kings.