I am always told that politics is not religion; that one must always look for ways to victory, regardless of the means. Yet I cannot stop getting astonished by the rate at which our politics continues to look unreligious -- it has gone to the dogs. 

This week we witnessed, firsthand, one of the more radical fantasies of mankind, that democracy can be achieved in any country particularly in Uganda under the NRM Government. 

I have on several occasions written in these very pages why I seriously think that countries such as Uganda need benevolent dictators -- not the current staged democracy -- to transform. I have asked, "What kind of democracy can a country have when majority of its population are so desperate to accept a bribe of a Shs 200 coin to vote for someone?

I have on several occasions indicated that this so-called democracy we practice in Uganda today is a liability to our country. Ugandans are wasting a lot of time, and resources carrying experiments whose results they already know.

Instead of people concentrating on their businesses and gardens they continue to waste a lot of time running around with self-serving politicians.

I have already written in these pages that I will not take part in the 2011 elections because being part of this excitement in the last fifteen years has not brought me anything fantastic. I continue to move on dusty-potholed road; I usually open my water taps and they are dry; I continue turn on my switches and there is no electricity; I continue to spend beyond my means to treat malaria and other illnesses in the expensive private clinics.

And anybody who questioned my judgment should have been answered by the magnitude of electoral fraud that marred the NRM Primaries held across the country last week.

All forms of electoral fraud on display
Mr President, I have now and again told you that election fraud will damage your credibility and that of your party if not abated. I warned you that the rate at which NRM was rigging elections would reduce voters' confidence in democracy.

I wonder whether there is anyone sober who would refute an hypothesis that the circus witnessed in NRM primaries will certainly make people less inclined to accept election results of the 2011 general elections.

Last week we witnessed all forms of electoral fraud being displayed by barefaced NRM cadres, majority of whom are top government ministers, MPs and more shockingly many of them are the 1981-86 liberation war heroes who dashed to the Luwero bushes on account of electoral fraud.

From gerrymandering, to manipulation of demography (including "importing" a large number of mercenary voters), to disenfranchisement, to intimidation, to violence, to attacks on polling officials, to vote buying, to misinformation, to misleading or confusing ballot papers, to ballot stuffing, to misrecording of votes, to misuse of proxy votes (where older and illiterate voters were left with no chance since the ballots did not have pictures of candidates), to destruction or invalidation of ballots.

This is the full list of electoral malpractices ever reported anywhere on planet earth and were all evident in the NRM primaries!

Why all this rigging?
As I have always written in these pages, on the outlook every Ugandan is now a politician. People are talking politics from January to December. In the church, the clergy is no longer preaching the word of God -- it spends more time preaching the flock how better-off they would be if they changed their voting pattern.

At school, teachers and professors spend more minutes of their lessons teaching Uganda's future voters how to 'vote wisely'.

In hospitals, patients forget to take medicine on time as they discuss politics. In labour wards, prospective mothers chat politics as they wait their turn to push Uganda's future voters. Ugandans are so obsessed with politics that now everyone thinks can be president or at least a village chief.

People have become obsessed with politics because it has become the most lucrative "business" in the country. High taxes and economic downturn are driving businessmen out of business into politics; low pay and wanting working conditions are forcing civil servants to resign their public service jobs and join politics where quick wealth is accumulated. In short, politics has remained as the only lucrative job in the country.

And the calculation is simple; sell your house in Kampala or draw your entire savings, ascend to your home area with sacks of sugar, boxes of soap, envelopes of cash, and jerrycans of paraffin, high some kibooko squad of sorts to terrorise your opponent's voters, win the MP seat, perchance you will as well win a parliamentary committee seat which will give you access to bribes and donor funds.

Now tell me, why should the voters who make these opportunists realise their dreams not share part of these pickings? This has been the genesis of electoral fraud in this country.

Legalise vote buying
I told a friend that the rate at which NRM leaders are rigging elections can only be dealt with by legalising vote buying, the Mexican style, where it is called "electoral treating" -- voters willing to sell their votes are asked to take a picture of their ballot with a cellphone camera to validate their payment.

Let us adopt this, after all now most voters in Uganda own a cellphone. Candidates should be allowed to buy votes and all those willing to sell be given the opportunity to advertise for willing buyers, sell and then vote in open to ensure compliance.

Why not? In any case even you politicians are self-serving. You are using the voters to gain mandate and access to free government money. 

NRM leaders are now the richest Ugandans yet 25 years ago you emerged out of the Luwero bushes with nothing but machineguns.

I usually hesitate to say this, lest someone (mis)interprets it to mean that our bush-war heroes have used the machineguns to rob Uganda. So by voters sharing part of this booty during election period is not that improper.

Democracy in poverty?
I have written about this before. We do not need electoral democracy in Uganda today. Architects of democratic governance teach us that democratic rules are compromised when voters with limited "capacity" are enfranchised. These are voters who are occupants of a social structure that makes them vulnerable to manipulation.

Look at our so-called voters in this country. Majority of them occupy the lowest stratum of our social structure. They are poor, illiterate, hungry, sick, and thus easy to manipulate. You politicians are buying their votes at a fee as outlandish as a Shs 200 coin or where "expensive" half a kilo of sugar.   

This folly has also defined the caliber of leaders we have nowadays. Look at our "honourable" MPs, our LC chiefs, and even some ministers!

We are now led by a bunch of some illiterate, uninformed, dim-witted fellows. We have ended up getting this quality of leaders simply because the voters feel these are the people they identify with. Voters want leaders with whom they have a lot in common.

Our voters wouldn't want to elect leaders who would impose on them "unacceptable" obligations such as obligatory domestic hygiene, compulsory household farming, mandatory child education, and all other prerequisites of a prosperous society. 

They want leaders with whom they would share the culture of poverty -- those who would allow them to spend their entire time idling away in town centres playing cards, those who would allow them sleep in filth, those with whom they would spend the entire day drinking malwa, those would shield them when caught breaking the law.      

Benevolent dictatorship
Mr President, I have now and again asked you to stop this staged democracy, emulate leaders who have helped their countries develop through benevolent dictatorship. In any case, deep down, you know you cannot relinquish power even if you got zero votes.  

Settle down, reduce the number of your useless politicians and the countless hangers-on (whom you are employing now because you need votes), drill oil and use the money to build us good roads, quality schools to educate our children, build hospitals, electrify all rural areas, extend piped water to villages, build public housing units, and provide other public services to Ugandans.

This is all we need. We don't eat politics. Mr President, Ugandan will be better off by knowing that you are going to be in power for the next 15 years than being hoodwinked into thinking that they can vote you out of power.

Populist politics has compelled you to make unrealistic promises to the people, it has made you parcel our country into diminutive pieces called districts, has made you expand government to an unmanageable size, has made you get held at ransom by your corrupt colleagues, has made you feel insecure and lose the trust of everybody else except your family members whom you are deploying into politics at a worrisome rate, has made you jeopardise your legacy and make a full circle to where you picked Uganda a quarter century ago. 

What an aberration!