In addition to presence in the constituency, women in reserved seats tend to show humility, honesty and patience and listen more to voters, which has earned them a reputation for being more motherly and closer to the voters. Furthermore, compared to women in the open seats, responses from FGDs show that women in reserved seats adopt a more consultative style with the voters.
The study established that constituency performance impacted voter perceptions and elections more than legislative performance. The negative perceptions of poor performance against one of the best legislators in the 10th Parliament explain the value attached to constituency availability. Similarly, in a different setting, voter preference and trust for MPs who focus more on the constituency, regardless of their effort to speak on the floor of Parliament, was established in Britain (McKay 2020:1). A legislator who does well at the plenary and poorly in the constituency hardly gets reelected. An evaluation of voter perception established a striking paradox: representatives doing the legislation are perceived as lesser performers and less popular with non-elite voters (FDGs Gulu 2021). One reason for this inclination is the limited civic awareness of the normative roles of MPs; voters receive little information about the proper roles of MPs, and the would-be information in the media is mostly inaccessible to the masses in rural communities. Overall, voters rate constituency performance highly because voters know what, how and where their MPs have performed contrary to the legislative roles played out in a distant place.
Implementation of Constituency Development Projects
Members of Parliament on both the reserved and open seats have development projects in their constituencies. Constituency expectations are one reason women concentrate on providing material and empowerment opportunities through their development projects. Even though MPs do this in the name of development, they are aware that these incentives have far-reaching effects on the perceptions of the majority of voters who live in poverty.
Voters perceive their individual economic needs as the primary obligation of MPs. Bearing in mind the needs of constituencies, women MPs distribute material items like saucepans, farm inputs, and African fabrics (kitenge); they provide financial assistance to savings groups, contribute to burial arrangements and provide educational materials to constituents. The inability or unwillingness to give these material items creates a worthless impression, affecting ballot choices. For example, a dissatisfied voter stated, ‘I voted for my MP but never received anything back. Therefore, I will not vote for her’ (FGD, Kitgum 2021). Poor socio-economic conditions and the failure of the government to implement existing legislation force voters to pursue short-term material gains.
Research has established that constituents care more about bread and butter issues than political ones (Tamale 1999:170). Consequently, irrespective of the seat, MPs recognise this need and focus on constituencies, not for the desire to perform their role but to build personal voting blocs (Tamale 1999; McKay 2020:2). MPs take advantage of voters’ short-term and sometimes selfish interests at the expense of long-term goals. However, the urban elite ridicule political manipulation and material politics in the form of the distribution of money whenever MPs are in the constituency in exchange for votes of the largely uneducated and impoverished electorate.