Several None Governmental organizations in Uganda under the Citizen’s Coalition for Electoral Democracy on Uganda –CCEDU have launched the “Honour your vote” campaign to encourage Ugandans to vote for people based on issues that will improve day to day live in communities.

History of elections in Uganda?

Every election period faces peculiar challenges and also offers numerous lessons. In Uganda, the history of democratic elections is characterised by electoral violence, monetisation of votes, increased sectarianism and ultimately court sessions and or increased domestic and community violence

The same scenario can be said of other national elections in Africa, for example Kenya 2007 and isolated cases in Ghana 2008 general elections.

In order to create a new order in African democratic elections, there is need to address the election evils and find a consensual call to action to the electorate to have a positive attitude towards the electoral process, solicit meaningful participation and post- election embracement.

What is the campaign “Honour Your Vote” about?

Honour is the evaluation of a person’s trustworthiness and social status based on that individual’s espousals and actions. Honour is deemed exactly what determines a person’s character: honesty, respect, integrity, or fairness. Honour is as real to the human condition as love, and likewise derives from the formative personal bonds that establish one’s personal dignity and character. In the Western society, honor figured largely as a guiding principle. A man’s honor, that of his wife, his family or his beloved, formed an all-important issue.

Guests share a light moment at the launch of honour your vote campaign

This is the essence that we propose to build amongst the voters, hence the call to “Honour your vote” to promote fellow country men‟s dignity, earn respect and build fairness that is important for the social good. The overall objectives of campaign can be categorized as:

• Influencing a positive reaction and involvement to the current electoral process by using a wide range of media platforms.
• Changing People‟s awareness and attitudes with respect to leadership and governance
• To promote a qualitative issue based approach in the electoral process
• Promoting responsible citizen participation in the election process by reducing ethnicity, incitement and hate speech in electoral process.
• Promote issue based debate and vigilant participation of the electorate in the electoral process
• Promote active involvement of youth and women in the electoral process

Who is behind the campaign?

The Honour Your Vote campaign is an initiative of the Citizen’s Coalition for Electoral Democracy on Uganda –CCEDU. CCEDU is a broad coalition spearheaded by like-minded civil society organizations united in the desire to create synergy in various electoral democracy efforts currently being undertaken throughout the country. Its role is to ensure that these initiatives, whether electoral monitoring, civic engagement or electoral reform, and targeting women, youth, the disabled and all sectors of the population, will speak with a collective voice which will mobilize the Ugandan citizenry especially in light of the forthcoming general elections in 2011 and future elections in Uganda.

The overriding agenda of this coalition is to advocate and promote integrity, transparency and active citizen participation in Uganda‟s electoral process in order to deepen democracy in Uganda. The information in the messages was derived from the Citizen‟s Manifesto- a reflection of consultations conducted across the country with ordinary Ugandans about their dreams and aspirations for the country.

Where will the campaign be seen and heard?

This is a multimedia messaging campaign that will be heard on radio with radio messages and talk shows and discussion.

We shall also have messages on TV and Debates that we have called “Face the Citizens” which provide voters at the grass roots with a platform through which they can voice what they believe are the most important election issues in their village, town and region. These issues will be directly put to either the presidential candidates or to their party representatives. By providing this platform, in the form of a series of debate, which will be broadcast across the nation, the project ultimately aims to shift electoral campaigns from being personality driven to being issue driven. Of equal importance, the debates will bring to the fore, the people with the biggest stake in any electoral process, and that is the ordinary people. Twelve debates will be held over the three months period preceding the presidential elections.

We are also having online presence with a dedicated website www.honouryourvote.ug for immediate access to information on the issues. We will reach people at across the country through various road shows that will be staged across the country for direct interaction and feedback.

What is the expected outcome of this campaign?

The most important outcome that we envisage is that all eligible Ugandans come out and vote. It‟s common practice for people to leave the voting to „others‟ and pretend to be busy or unbothered, not knowing that by so doing, they are letting someone else make their vital decisions! We are coming out to say to all eligible Ugandans – Go out and Vote. We want to have more people coming out top vote as compared to the 2006 General elections that registered 69.2% voter turnout for the presidential elections, 67.8%, and 46.3%, for the Parliamentary and Local Government Council Elections respectively.

The other pertinent issue is to appeal to all Ugandans to keep their sanity in this election period. We are trying to tell Ugandans that it is ok for people, your friends, your family, and your workmates to have different opinions from you about their choices. We are hoping for a high level of tolerance.

We also want Ugandans to start basing their preference on issues especially in this and all subsequent elections. It‟s important that as Ugandans, we listen to the issues that these candidates [at all levels] promise so that we can later task them on what they promised. This is the only way we will inculcate a culture of accountability from our elected representatives. The Citizen‟s Manifesto should be the focus of the candidates‟ manifestos.

We hope to dissuade Ugandans from the practice of being offered any kind of materialistic incentives in exchange for their votes. To quote a famous person in Uganda, “Eat their money; drink their beer but vote with your conscience”.

We believe that if we as Ugandans come out and collectively Honour our vote, Uganda will improve its approach to achieving good governance and democracy.