Election Day

Tomorrow Uganda will hold elections for president and parliament. This only comes every 5 years. Campaigning has been going on for months. Posters are plastered everywhere with candidates photos and names. It makes me laugh that you will often see 20 identical posters in a row for one candidate. Everyday campaign trucks go by with music blaring, tons of posters, and people standing in the back yelling for their candidate. I’ve been told candidates often get people from the slums or villages to ride around in these trucks and they pay them a couple of dollars a day.

In the race for President there are 8 candidates. The current president, Yoweri Museveni, has been in office 25 years and is expected to win in a landslide victory, but the difficulty comes in wondering if the elections will be fair. Museveni appoints the members of the election commission, so many expect fraud. The US and other nations have been encouraging them to make sure things run as smoothly as possible. It will be interesting to see how it turns out.

We do not expect violence and protests like that in Egypt, but there will be some outcry I am sure when the results are announced. Thankfully there is a lot of extra security with the police and army. There is also some threat of a terrorist attack like those that happened in the summer. Some of you may not remember, but during the final World Cup game last summer, two Somalian terrorists set off bombs in the city of Kampala. Since that happened in July there are now security checkpoints at virtually every public place. I get my bag checked and “wanded” each time I enter a major business. It can be annoying, but I am also grateful for the extra vigilance.

My plan is to stay home for the next few days. Voting for the Presidential and Parliamentary races is tomorrow. Results will be announced within a couple of days. Elections for the more local offices will be later next week. Most people say that the best thing for Americans to do is to stay home. I stocked up on cell phone minutes, movies, and extra snacks today, so Mercy and I should be good for a while. We hope that the power and phone services stay on, but there is no guarantee.

Please keep the people of Uganda in your prayers in the next couple of days. Pray for wisdom as they head to the polls, pray for peace, and pray for the coming leader to be a great leader for the people I’ve come to love so much.