Museveni's Casino: Anne Mugisha on Uganda's 2011 election

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni celebrates his 26th year in office. 

Anne Mugisha

"We knew exactly what was going to happen in this election.  We complained about the registers, we complained about the inflated numbers of people on the registers, we complained about the use of state resources in the election, but we still agreed to go in and participate.  So that's like walking into a casino, knowing that the guy who owns it has to make a profit.  Sometimes a few lucky people make some money.  But most of the time people lose.  So this time around I lost.   A few of our opposition people did scrape through, but the casino is owned by the ruling party and President Museveni and they would definitely be looking to make a profit.  So that's how I see this election, like a trip to the casino."  

--Anne Mugisha, 2011 candidate for Women's Member of Parliament in Uganda's Mbarara District                       

That's one quote, from my conversation with Anne Mugisha, opposition candidate for Women's Member of Parliament in Uganda's Mbrara District, on 02.19.2011, the day after Uganda's 2011 presidential and parliamentary polls closed.  She also reported that one of her volunteers came close to being arrested for objecting to the ruling National Resistance Movement's reps openly buying votes in the center of a village, and talked about the need to build a culture of nonviolent protest in Uganda, a process that she seems committed to but said would take years.  Here's the conversation, just one paragraph fits into my KPFA Weekend News on Uganda's polls: