HIS BIGGEST worry was that they’d rig it. In the end, Dr Ian Clarke’s margin of victory was so big that even when one or two declaration forms went missing, the result was not in doubt.
At 8am yesterday morning, the Ugandan election commission declared the Armagh native the new chairman of Kampala’s Makindye division. With 26,500 votes, he beat the incumbent Moses Kalungi of the ruling National Resistance Movement into second place with just 11,000.
“We started getting warnings on Wednesday night that people were trying to interfere with the vote” Dr Clarke said yesterday, “but we had our people on the ground, watching for irregularities. Still, we were surprised that the NRM candidate came second, because he is not popular on the ground.”
A qualified GP, Dr Clarke decided to run for the local elections when he became convinced that Makindye, home to 800,000 people, needed better service delivery.
To this end, he spent $50,000 on his campaign, recruiting election agents and delivering basic services to the area such as rubbish collection. “It’s my money, so we’re skint, but I see it as good corporate social responsibility.”
Clarke founded the private International hospital in Kampala, which employs over 700 people. “It’s a social investment, so hopefully over the next five years we will see a good return on it.”
Reaction to the win has been overwhelmingly positive, with an endless flow of texts and calls coming into Uganda’s 91.3 Capital FM.
“We are expecting a lot from Ian,” said one text message yesterday. “We just hope you don’t get frustrated by the politics.”
“We wish him a lot of luck” said another, read out by the morning show host Allan Kasujja. “Makindye is lucky to have Ian Clarke.”
“This has been the most interesting local election for a long time” said Kasujja by telephone from Kampala. “Ian’s win represents a departure from the failures of the past. People really wanted to see him going through because he represents getting things done.”
During the election campaign, his rival Mr Kalungi alleged that Dr Clarke, who came to Uganda over 20 years ago, was a colonial throwback.
However, it was the very fact that Dr Clarke was white, said Andrew Mwende, a Ugandan political commentator, that made his victory not at all surprising.
“If you are white, you may have an advantage come election time, especially in urban areas where people can listen to you in English,” he said. “It’s not like South Africa or Kenya, where there politics has been based along racial lines or there is animosity towards white people.
“There is a perception in Uganda that white people are better managers, which is a spillover from colonialism where the British norms and ethics of bureaucracy in public service were imported into the country.”
For now Dr Clarke won’t have to make any serious decision until May, when he takes up his new position. Now his main focus is on getting some sleep and having a beer or two in Kampala over the next few nights.
“I’ll have a Nile Special all right” he said, “but I can only drink a couple of them because they are pretty strong.”