I boosted on Facebook my post containing a link to my blog post, which featured Hajjat Sebyala Afwa (popularly known as Hajjat Green) and it was titled: “Why aren’t Mutuba trees growing all over Uganda.” It garnered a reach of 20.6 thousand people; of whom 598 clicked on the link and presumably read the full blog post on my website. The audience on Facebook that took interest in this my Mutuba trees post was 77 percent men; and only 23 percent women.
My second post “Desire Lavigne Karakire’s experience at a “rehab from hell!” garnered a reach of over 14.5 thousand people, of whom 71 percent were men and only 29 percent were women.
Why is this relevant to participation or not of women in active politics in Uganda, you may ask.
Online participation, as can be deduced from the performance of these two posts, is skewed and dominated 74 percent by men.
This is consistent with empirical research findings confirm existence of a digital gender gap in Uganda.
Therefore, if, truly, campaigns for the 2021 parliamentary and presidential elections are being done mostly on social media, it is valid to conclude women are already disenfranchised.
Add other factors that disenfranchise women:
- Violence that characterized youth elections.
- Violence that characterized campaigns in the primaries of the ruling party.
- Fear of contracting COVID-19.
And it is logical to conclude women’s participation in campaigns for the 2021 elections is inhibited.
No doubt this will likely be the case on polling or voting day as well.
the Humanist view 
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