Saturday 10th of June

It is Saturday in Kampala, so its time for me to visit Ekimeeza at club Obligato. As many as two hundred participants are gathered again to discuss social and political issues. Thousands are listening along though the live radio broadcast. This week, the  Ekimeeza participants will discuss elections in South Africa and how Uganda could learn or take examples for Ugandan elections in 2011. Because the word ‘elections’ was in today’s topic the Ekimeeza was split up in two sides, NRM and FDC (these are the ruling party and biggest opposition party respectively). Not a lot was spoken on educating the electorate, state funding of election campaigns or electronic voting. Instead, the show was about how bad the FDC was and how good the NRM or vice versa. Insulting and emotional remarks about the other party were made and it looked more like Jerry Springer than an intellectual discussion. 

One contestant accused some party members of witchcraft and time and again party members spend their whole speech talking about their party, forgetting the topic of the discussion was South-African elections. I amaze myself about what kind of arguments are appreciated by other participants during the debate. Assumptions lacking any kind of funded facts pass without criticism from the audience, however, if a participant has a date of an event wrong (for example the date of the independence of Tanzania) the audience immediately discards the speaker as uneducated and therefore unfit for the debate. Presentation through dramatic gestures and expensive vocabulary is much more appreciated than a solid argument. This might be attributed to the education system in which children grow up learning dates by heart in packed classrooms where there is little room for personal development or critical thinking.

One thing that became very clear to me was the presence of 4 hired NRM supporters who, according to some other participants, get paid by government to attend the show and say good things about the sitting government. Members of the ruling party do not have time to attend talk-shows or feel too important to join in the public debate, this is why people are hired to defend them during debates or call-in radio shows. Without going in to the topic at hand, these people promote the accomplishments of the president and the incompetence of the opposition party. At the Ekimeeza, they clap for each other when one of them is speaking and try to take over the Ekimeeza by manipulating the talk-show host, confusing the debate with crazy arguments and signing up for each other one hour before the show actually starts.

This observation tells me something about how the sitting government is perceiving the impact this radio debate called Ekimeeza has on public opinion in Uganda. Government officials are involved in organizing groups to participate in the debate. After today’s show, I went up to a speaker who seemed to be blindly and irrationally supporting the NRM and asked him about the motives behind his contribution. At first, he said something about his genuine support of the ruling party and his admiration of President Museveni. One of my other respondents joined our conversation and blew the NRM supporters cover and explained that the man in question was one of the media activists hired by the government. Fair or not, the interference of my other friend loosened the tong of the NRM supporter who actually was a media activist. He told me in private that an organization, affiliated with the Ruling party paid him Ugs 5000 (€1.50) per talk-show he attended. Every Thursday the NRM Media Activist Group would meet at the Media Center, which is a government institution officially set up to provide information to Ugandan journalists, it turns out that the media center also instructs unqualified individuals to spread particular information at talk-shows and debates. To my surprise, the activist invited me to come to one of these meetings.

Thursday 15th of June

When I arrived at the media center on Thursday with my NRM friend, I found a room filled with about 25 men ranging from 25 to 55 years. They were surprised to see me, and a woman, who saw me through the window of her office when we entered the premises, ran up to the meeting room to order me and my acquaintance into her office. She turned out to be the supervisor and was pretty stressed that I was snooping around in the media center. She was stumbling at first that I had to fill in all kinds of forms before I was allowed to attend the meeting and, that said, she left the office to call her superiors. When she came back she told me I was allowed to stay for the session. I suspect that throwing me out would be more suspicious in the end.

I watched the president’s budget speech on TV together with the media-activists of whom I knew some from the Ekimeeza. When we finished watching the speech the chairman of the group discussed what would be an appropriate way to promote the words of the President. Because the speech itself was confusing enough there were no big challenges with it according to the attendants. And indeed, the President’s speech and the reading of the budget by the minister of finance did not give any reason to be worried about the financial situation of the nation.. Spending on public services would go up and taxes would be brought down, the state would bring foreign aid down and investments up and plastic bags would be abolished because it harmed the environment. On top of this, corruption would be targeted because ‘the NRM was a strong Party’ (Museveni: 2009). I do not have to explain that these promises and targets will just be added to the dusty pile of other promises and unimplemented plans.

Back in the media-activist meeting, I was wondering if the supervisor changed the program of the meeting because of my presence. I was hoping for some juicy propaganda tricks, but it seemed like a reasonable group of people discussing political issues in the benefit of their party. It is of course a bit strange that the government pays unqualified people to defend them in public debates. One activist explained that as a media activist, it did not matter a great deal what you said or looked like, listeners would think you were an important person because they would hear your voice speaking out for the NRM. ‘It’s not so much about the content of your contribution, it is about your presence at a radio show’, one of the activists said. Most of the activists joined the group because they were pursuing a career in politics, by defending ruling party members on the radio; they hope to get personally connected to the big men and eventually get some job-offer. Seen from the grassroots, this is how patronage works..