My Encounter with America
Part 7: The elections of 1980
By Zadok Ekimwere
zomwere@hotmail.com

Monitoring and covering the 1980 presidential and congressional campaigns and elections really impressed me, and I learned many lessons about American politics.

Though they belong to different parties, when it comes to choosing candidates, Americans vote for those who have qualities they want regardless of party identities. I met many Democrats who voted for Ronald Reagan, because they thought he presented a better program than Jimmy Carter, the incumbent from the Democratic Party who had failed to rescue American hostages held in Iran.

In Africa, once you join a party, you belong there for life. You have to vote for your candidate and party however weak or badly he/she has performed in the campaigns. It is sacrilege or even treasonable for one to vote for a candidate from another party. If found out, the consequences are grievous and one can earn the label unpatriotic and even lose his life.

Political campaign periods are hell in Uganda. Take the example of a happily married couple. If a husband joins the party of his choice, he expects his wife to do the same obediently. Should she "make a mistake" and join a different party, which appeals to her, she is in trouble. If she is lucky, she will escape with severe beatings for shaming and disobeying her husband. If unlucky, she could be divorced after torture.

Many families have been ruined because of politics in Africa. On voting day, men watch over their women to ensure they do not go astray during voting.

During the U.S. campaigns I came across many couples where the wife was a Democrat and the husband a Republican and vice versa, but they lived in harmony. I wished those couples could be hired to go and educate African couples on the meaning of political choice and family life. Perhaps it would give a different meaning to the nature of politics there.

I also came to know there were other presidential candidates apart from Carter and Reagan. My favorite candidate was John Anderson, an independent presidential candidate. He was a real intellectual orator who appealed to me. Surprisingly, American voters said, though Anderson spoke so well, they were not going to vote for him.

There was also a pedestrian presidential candidate I ran into campaigning in the Midwest. His party was called Umoja (unity), fashioned after the late Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere's ideals. He was campaigning only in his local area because he had no resources. His crowd was very thin. He was very excited to receive me.

After the Republican victory, Voice of America television invited three outstanding journalists to go to their studios and discuss the implications of the Republican victory to the developing countries, with emphasis on Africa. I was one of the three who represented Uganda, Nigeria, and Mauritius. A chartered light aircraft came to pick us up from New York to Washington D.C.

Before we were let into the studios, we had to be taken first into the salon to be polished up. After the salon my face looked different with one inch of make- up pasted on it.

We signed copyright documents before we started a 30- minute discussion moderated by VOA staff. A video recording of this discussion was sent to the Ministry of Information in Uganda, but they could not screen it because their technology was obsolete. It took me a decade before I returned to the U.S. in 1991 for a summer media seminar to discuss the aftermath of the Gulf War.