Nationwide — CAMPAIGNS for the 2006 presidential election ended yesterday with the five candidates making last-minute efforts to win votes ahead of an election that polls show is likely to be the closest in the country's recent history.

Violence on the last stretch threatened to mar what had started off as a peaceful campaign, but this did not deter the candidates from making their final pitches.

President Yoweri Museveni, the only candidate who was able to campaign in all 69 districts, took full advantage of the power of incumbency by holding a rally at Kololo Airstrip while a chartered Cessna plane flew over the city, dropping campaign paraphernalia.

At Kololo, Museveni warned against violence during the election, and said 12,000 army reservists have been deployed across the country to keep the peace.

"The state is ready to deal with whoever will try violence," warned Museveni, in the company of his wife. "We have all the means to do so; nobody should be tempted to cause trouble."

The President, who used an army helicopter to campaign in four districts on Monday, was later expected to head to his country home in Rwakitura, where the First Family traditionally vote from.

With First Lady Janet running a bruising race for parliament against the Forum for Democratic Change's incumbent Augustine Ruzindana in nearby Ruhaama constituency, it was all hands to the pump, or ballot box, for the First Family.

To turn up the heat, Museveni's leading challenger, Dr Kizza Besigye of the FDC spent his last day of campaigning in the president's home district, Kiruhura, while his wife Winnie Byanyima held a final rally at the Boma ground in Mbarara.

Besigye rejected the new police escorts the State had provided him, preferring to go out alone, only in the company of his driver. He addressed a rally at 11am at Nyakashashara, Nyabushozi in Kiruhura where he arrived only with his driver.

Later, after FDC youth brigade members linked up to provide security, he addressed rallies at Kazo, Kanoni, Kashongi, Rubindi, Rutooma, Bwizibwera and Nyahanga.

Besigye accused Museveni of betraying the struggle that took them to the bush, saying the President was now working for the interests of a small group around him.

He said it did not matter if Museveni had the army and guns, as long as the people were on the side of change.

"We have already won the elections," Besigye said as the crowd cheered.

He urged voters to be vigilant and report strangers who turn up to vote.

Representing her husband at the last major rally at Mbarara Boma ground, Byanyima said time was up for Museveni to go.

She said Museveni should not say he has nowhere to go. "He should go to his Rwakitura farm and look after his animals," she said.

People suffering

Democratic Party candidate John Ssebaana Kizito spent his last day in Kampala, where he is the out-going Mayor, campaigning in various suburbs.

"I have rounded the whole of Uganda and the situation I have seen is not good," Ssebaana said. "Museveni should not brag; people are suffering.

I am the only experienced leader with experience in public service who can provide good leadership in this country." Uganda People's Congress leader Miria Obote, who became the first woman to head a political party and run for president in Uganda, was campaigning in Lango region, a traditional bastion of support for the party that ruled the country between 1962-71 and 1981-85.

Miria addressed rallies at Karuma, Kamdini and Minakulu in Apac district where she told people to vote for UPC in order to end their suffering at the hands of the Lord's Resistance Army rebels.

Heavy rain later stopped Miria from holding scheduled rallies in Oyam South constituency. Dr Abed Bwanika, the only independent candidate in the race, was at Makerere University, where he promised to initiate an education loan scheme for the students.

While briefing poll observers yesterday, the Secretary of the Electoral Commission, Mr Sam Rwakoojo said the campaigns had, by law, to end 24 hours before polling day.

"This applies to all categories and levels of elections under the universal adult suffrage," he said "In that regard, campaigns for presidential and parliamentary elections are ending tonight."

Yesterday's marathon campaigns ended nine weeks of politicking ahead of the country's first multiparty elections in 25 years. The official electoral battle started on December 14 and 15 last year when six candidates were nominated to contest the presidency.

Al-Hajj Nasser Ntege Sebaggala, who was running as an independent, after failing in the Democratic Party primary, later pulled out in favour of DP's Ssebaana, to run as Mayor of Kampala.

Opinion polls indicate that this is the stiffest challenge to Museveni's grip on power, 20 years after he came to office after a five-year guerrilla war. In the 1996 election, Museveni received 75.5 per cent of the vote to DP's Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere's 22.3 per cent.

In 2001, Museveni's numbers fell to 69.3 per cent but it was enough to give him victory over Besigye, who scored 27.8 per cent.

Three opinion polls commissioned by Daily Monitor in the last two months show that this election is likely to be closer than the previous two.

The continued detention of Besigye in the early days of the campaigns continued to linger and divert attention from the campaign rallies to the courts, where he was facing rape, treason and terrorism charges.

Besigye, who lost slightly over two weeks of the campaign while in detention, then had to divide his time between campaigning and attending to his continuing legal challenges, which he said were trumped up and politically motivated to divert his attention away from his presidential ambitions.

As the days went by, Besigye's camp got more frustrated by what they alleged were cheap campaign shots from the NRM to divert their attention. They pointed to a petition, filed by MP Moses Kizige, the chairman of the Movement caucus in the seventh Parliament, questioning Besigye's academic credentials on the basis that they were achieved with a stolen identity.

A constitutional court suit challenging the legality of nominating Besigye in absentia - later dismissed with costs - was also condemned as a state-inspired ploy, after the two petitioners, who were joined by the Attorney General, were revealed to be government security operatives.

Dirty linen

After Besigye's wife Byanyima gave President Museveni two days to run a clean campaign or have his personal, marital and moral shortcomings exposed, the campaign cooled down but the sounds of the dirty linen flapping around in the gusts of political activity could be heard down to the last day.

Amidst all the scrapping at the bottom of the political barrel, the candidates managed to raise some issues that defined their campaigns, and to question the achievements highlighted by the incumbent.

Museveni ran a typical incumbent's campaign focused on the government's achievements in the last 20 years, including removing dictatorship, giving people the chance to vote, introducing peace and stability, rule of law, economic stability and rebuilding the infrastructure destroyed in the 70s and early 80s. This he termed the 'minimum recovery' of the country. He also focused on the specific achievements such as the introduction of Universal Primary Education, child immunisation, reducing poverty levels from 56 to 38 per cent, building health centres, and fighting the HIV/Aids epidemic.

Museveni based his re-election on the need to consolidate those achievements, while working towards the realisation of the East African federation, value addition to Uganda's exports, accessing markets, especially in the west, introducing free Universal Secondary Education, and economic transformation from a peasant society to an industrial one.

The incumbent condensed his message to three slogans; Bonna basome (education for all), bonna bagaggawale (prosperity for all) and bonna bagemwe (immunisation for all).

Balancing act

Museveni's rivals played a delicate balancing act of criticising what was wrong in the country (insecurity in the north, high poverty, corruption, lack of genuine democracy, a confrontational foreign policy, especially with the donors, and the unfair use of state resources to entrench the NRM), while suggesting alternatives.

Besigye ran a campaign that focused mainly on the need for democracy, good governance and rule of law in the country. His consistently repeated argument was that sustainable economic development could only be achieved on a strong democratic foundation.

Besigye also promised poverty eradication, as well as ending insecurity in the war-torn areas. The party ran a nationalistic campaign with the slogan 'One Uganda, One people,' but it was 'Agende' (Let him go), another slogan popular with party supporters, that showed that this, ultimately, was a campaign for a referendum on Museveni.

Ssebaana focused his campaign on the theme 'poverty to prosperity,' and stayed close to his strong personal knowledge of economics in his campaign message. Ssebaana paid a lot of attention to his home area of Luweero, traditionally a Museveni stronghold, and forced the President to spend more time campaigning in the area than originally planned. DP also criticised the rampant corruption in government and Museveni's failure to end the war in the north.

Miria ran a campaign that tried to play on UPC's past record of having built a lot of the infrastructure in the country in the post-independence period, to try and project it as one that can deliver campaign promises if returned to power. She persistently criticised the government for those areas that have lagged behind or suffered reversals in their economic fortunes, such as Jinja, but her strongest message, in light of the party's coloured political history in the country, was of reconciliation and forgiveness for past mistakes.

Like her DP and FDC counterparts, Miria also promised Buganda a federal system of government, where Museveni had offered the much-ridiculed "regional tier".

Bwanika, a veterinary doctor largely unknown before the campaigns, surprised many by lasting the distance - and by holding a consistent line of turning Uganda into a global food basket, an IT workstation, a regional shopping centre, and a tourist centre. He also made time for some populist promises, such as selling off the presidential jet, while also attacking Besigye for being no different from Museveni, with whom he fought in the 1981-86 war and worked with in government until 1999.

Museveni came into the campaigns with his democratic credentials in the spotlight, after encouraging - some critics even say bribing - members of Parliament to amend the Constitution to lift the two-term limit on the presidency to allow him seek yet another term in office.

While the opposition sought to make the election a referendum on Museveni, he battled to keep it at arms length by ridiculing the opposition and their leadership credentials.