Uganda is a football country. People’s health and happiness heavily depend on the fortunes of their English Premier League teams. The narrative is controlled by whether Manchester United is winning or losing. No point trying to tear the newspaper at this point, because details of this will come another day. I attended Victoria Nile School, Jinja, 1978-1983. Mixed school, and like most Ugandan schools then-and now-football ruled the imagination. Football was not just a game; it was the narrative. The boys played football. The girls had their games too: netball, rope skipping, kwepena, etc. But football was king.
Every once in a while, the girls would tire of watching from the sidelines and demand a piece of the action. Our sports master, Mr Julius Owino-Oloo, a huge crowd favourite, would oblige-on conditions. Since football was ‘not their game,’ the girls would be assisted. Heavily. Boys, no running. Walking only, hands tied behind our backs by clasping them together – undoing them was an automatic disqualification. No touching the girls at all-no tackling, no shielding, no pushing.
The girls, by contrast, ran freely. They could not be offside. They could push, shove, or even slap you-no case to answer. And if, by some miracle, a boy scored a goal, Mr Owino-Oloo would smile and find a reason to cancel it. An offside that did not exist. A boy who had ‘run’ somewhere in the build-up. Something-anything. The objective was never concealed: the girls had to win. At the time, we laughed. It was a game. The rules were absurd, but harmless. I had forgotten all this until I took another look at Uganda’s elections. Then the memory returned-fully formed, disturbingly familiar.
Under our Constitution, elections must be free and fair. The official narrative insists that they are exactly that. Yet for four decades, a pattern has been consistent: One side of the political contest is allowed to campaign freely across the country-years before the official campaign period opens. It uses State resources openly. Public officials double as mobilisers. Laws are broken – but the Electoral Commission sees absolutely nothing wrong. But let the other side do something. Anything. Oh! The referee suddenly remembers the rulebook. Press conferences are convened.
Statements are issued-stern, legalistic, indignant. Threats of disqualification are made, and often carried out. Always against one side. Never the other.
One side is disciplined by law. The other is indulged by discretion. Meanwhile, leaders and mobilisers from the disadvantaged side are hauled to prison-on charges of treason, terrorism, possession of firearms, or rape. The charges are always grave. The timing is always convenient. The cases rarely proceed to trial. And when they do, they collapse-sometimes spectacularly-without the accused needing to say a word.
In the political economy of elections, for ‘revolutionaries’, manipulation is cheaper than competition. It costs less to criminalise and disable opponents than to persuade citizens; less to control referees than to improve performance. Over time, a country’s economy is built around this as a strategic objective: institutions that benefit from selective enforcement, officials rewarded for compliance, and a system where the costs of cheating are borne by the public, while the benefits are privately enjoyed.
The result is an election that is procedurally elaborate but substantively hollow-like a football match where one team plays with tied hands, forbidden to run, while the other enjoys the full freedom of the pitch and the referee’s indulgent smile. The irony is that this system is often defended in the name of stability, order, and legality. Yet nothing corrodes law faster than selective application, and nothing destabilises a polity more than the knowledge that outcomes are predetermined. Football teaches a simple democratic lesson: rules matter only if they bind everyone equally, including the referee.
A referee who must ensure victory for one team has already forfeited the right to call it a game. Once the referee chooses the winner, the match ceases to be sport and becomes theatre. Spectators may still fill the stands, but belief drains away. Uganda’s challenge is not a lack of laws, institutions, or elections. It is the refusal to let them operate without discrimination. Democracy, like football, cannot survive when one side is permanently handicapped and told that the match was free and fair. Rigged soccer makes children laugh together good-naturedly. Rigged elections? They kill the nation.