UGANDA: The results of the Ugandan presidential election will be felt across Africa, Rob Crilly writes from Kampala
First come the boda-boda boys, tooting the horns on their motorcycle taxis and spinning their rear wheels on the dirt football pitch until clouds of dust rise into the air.
Then the music starts, sending pulsing African rhythms shooting through the growing crowd. Some begin shuffling their feet or waving palm leaves above their heads.
By the time a fleet of 4x4s arrive the political rally has taken on the feel of an evangelical revival meeting - fitting given that the man whose head appears through the sunroof of a Mitsubishi is seen as the figure who can help resurrect Uganda's stumbling push towards democracy.
Kizza Besigye, leader of Uganda's largest opposition party, doesn't stay long. For five minutes he sets out his vision for bringing prosperity to this impoverished people.
"One Uganda," he shouts, receiving the raucous reply: "One people." He leaves with the echo of his trademark roar - a guttural rrrraaaah - reverberating around the pitch.
By the end of the day he will have addressed some 15 rallies as his Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party prepares for tomorrow's presidential vote.
There is only one issue for many of the country's 10 million voters - how can they get rid of Yoweri Museveni, the man who has ruled Uganda for 20 years.
Walugembe Rwany (19), who is unemployed, speaks for many of the 4,000 people who turned up at Dr Besigye's rally at Kireka, about 10 minutes outside the Ugandan capital, Kampala: "Western people told us he [ Museveni] was a new type of African leader but he turned out to be a dictator and doesn't want to give up power - just like Mugabe and the rest."
For this election is not just about Uganda. Its results will be felt across a continent, where successive generations of leaders have failed to live up to their promises.
Along with Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia, Paul Kagame in Rwanda and Isiais Afwerki in Eritrea, Museveni was seen as the sort of leader with whom the West could do business.
After leading his rebel army to power in 1986, deposing the bloody regime of Milton Obote, he promised to restore democracy to his war-torn country. He said he would liberalise the economy and privatise state-run industries.
He was one of the first African leaders to address the problem of Aids at a time when many shied from admitting the disease existed. As a result, government figures suggest 6 per cent of Ugandans have HIV compared with 18 per cent in the early 1990s - a spectacular result in this part of the world.
The aid dollars flowed in throughout the 1990s. But one by one Museveni and the rest have each slipped towards autocracy, becoming the sort of "big man" African leader - ruling by patronage and favour - that they were supposed to replace.
Five years ago Museveni promised to step down when his second term ended this month, in line with the constitution he introduced. Last year he changed his mind, saying that only he could solve Uganda's problems, such as the long-running civil war in the north.
Now he has a battle on his hands. The latest opinion poll published in the independent Monitor newspaper gives Museveni 47 per cent of the vote compared with 36 per cent for Dr Besigye, enough to force a second round of voting.
The opposition is already crying foul.
Besigye himself was arrested on suspicion of rape and treason last November shortly after returning from exile in South Africa. He spent Christmas behind bars on what are widely regarded as trumped-up charges.
The verdict in his rape trial is expected next month, but he says his campaign was badly disrupted by the need to attend court on an almost daily basis.
"We are competing against a ruling regime that has been in power for 20 years as the sole party," he says on the veranda of his home. "We are a party that has only been allowed to function in this country for one year. We have a ruling party fully funded by the state, while we have to struggle on our own."
Tensions have risen in Kampala since the deaths of three FDC supporters last week when police opened fire on a crowd.
Evidence of widespread ballot rigging could be enough to send Dr Besigye's supporters on to the streets, fears which he is doing little to dampen.
"What I can say is that there is a very worrying situation of clearly popular discontent in the whole country, to which the government is responding with repression. It has been my contention that where you have popular discontent responded to with repression - the kind of repression we are seeing with the military, with the police - is likely to lead to escalating conflict and possibly violence."