CIC Orders UPDF to deal with political intimidators Entebbe, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | President Yoweri Museveni has directed the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) to deal with any political intimidators. Museveni, who chaired UPDF High Command and Defence Council at Entebbe State House on Wedensday and Thursday, said UPDF …
Read More »Perhaps we should all be police officers
COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | As we continue headlong into the regurgitating inanity that is Uganda’s rollercoaster elections, the gross contradictions that embody our governance and politics continue unencumbered. Dear reader, let us review a few instances that should have us questioning why we remain overly yoked to the incumbent ruling …
Read More »From citizens to clients
Essay 2 of 7: How Uganda Forgot Its Citizens COMMENT | Gertrude Kamya Othieno | In a healthy democracy, citizenship implies both responsibility and entitlement. It is a mutual contract: citizens invest trust, taxes, and participation, while the state delivers services, justice, and opportunity. But in Uganda, this social contract has been …
Read More »The death of democracy under military captivity
If Museveni went to the bush over rigged elections, then restoring a credible elections should have been his main goal COMMENT | MORRIS KOMAKECH | The most deceptive narrative for justifying the 1980-85 Luwero bush war was that then-president Milton Obote’s Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) party rigged 1980 general elections. …
Read More »Breaking US democracy beyond repair
COMMENT | IAN BURUMA | Compared to other Western democracies, the United States is still a profoundly religious country. Around 24% of Americans identify as evangelical Christians. Five US Supreme Court justices are conservative Catholics (the only other conservative on the bench, Neil Gorsuch, was raised and educated as a Catholic but is …
Read More »The New Washington Consensus
After watching business take over the US government, the only alternative is to abandon any pretense of democracy COMMENT | KATHRINA PISTOR | For decades, we have been told that government-operated businesses are bad for the economy. A staple of the “Washington Consensus” that emerged in the 1980s was that “private …
Read More »How to fix democracy?
Ancient philosopher Plato may have an answer to why only those skilled in statecraft should rule the unskilled COMMENT | MATTHEW DUNCOMBE | The Republic, the best-known work of ancient Greek philosopher Plato, authored around 375BC, has shaped western political thought. Greece is now known as the “cradle of democracy”. Not …
Read More »Requiem for America’s democracy
How America’s pursuit of global primacy undermines democracy at home and international law abroad THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | I argued in this column last week that America’s pursuit of global primacy (hegemony) is increasingly becoming a liability to Europe’s security and economic prosperity. Germany is the biggest loser in …
Read More »The end of US democracy was all too predictable
Philosophers have understood how demagogues come to power in free and fair elections, only to overthrow democracy and establish tyrannical rule COMMENT | JASON STANLEY | Like others, since late Tuesday night (November 5), my phone has been blaring with text messages asking how this could have happened (as some of …
Read More »DR OLOKA ONYANGO: Uganda Needs More Civil Society ‘Jiggers’
Our civil society needs to challenge those in power or who seek it to ensure good governance and accountability FROM THE ARCHIVES -2006 | Dr. Joe Oloka-Onyango | Most government officials react negatively to critical statements made by civil society actors and academics. They accuse us of being armchair politicians, meaning …
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