As the judiciary embarks on hearing petitions challenging the election of hundreds of Members of Parliament (MPs) and Local Council leaders arising from this year’s general elections, attention will be on the courts with trust that they will deliver justice and in good time. However, closer attention should be fixed on those responsible for the mess that leads to these petitions.
Each one of these petitions reflects dissatisfaction with the processes leading to and outcome of individual cases arising from constituencies and gazette electoral areas. Seeking court redress is guaranteed under the Constitution, and operationalised by the Parliamentary Elections Act and Local Government Act. It’s a step on the democracy ladder, and the last legal frontier in electoral political contestation.
Nevertheless, judicial involvement in resolving matters of political nature is a stretch on government resources and functionality, considering the endemic backlog at the bench and general disruption of normal business. An MP or chairperson whose election is under challenge can hardly concentrate on their duties-having to prepare a defence, attend proceedings and mobilise the finances required to defend their seat. This disadvantages the constituents who need the services and undivided attention of their leaders.
It’s another hole-in-the-wall for corruption. A leader under pressure because of his or her position being on the line is under great temptation to use the position to look for money to meet the cost of the legal challenge. That’s how some MPs demand or take bribes from institutions they are supposed to do oversight on or how leaders in the districts and cities engage in selling government jobs, contracts and extorting from (corrupt) civil servants, all to facilitate the fight for their political lives. Meanwhile, the petitioner will be on the ground undercutting them, preparing for a possible rerun.
In constituencies where the “elected” leaders’s election is being challenged, political season doesn’t end. Rival camps remain charged. People are tied in endless electioneering, whereas the general election season is limited to a few months of campaigns and voting, after which everyone goes back to working for a livelihood. Election messes steal people’s time and make them slaves of contestants. That’s why by-elections perennially register the lowest voter turnout. It would be better if everybody did a good job and everything ended satisfactorily in the ballot box.
Let’s agree that voters don’t want to be “overworked”. Ugandans have seen democracy enough to know what is expected of them and they have diligently exercised that Constitutional right for decades.
But there are traitors around, working to disrupt every gain registered since 1986. They are behind the mess that forces political contestation to stretch to the already busy courts of law. Among them are electoral officials and presiding officers. These ones, acting on a range of motivations like having taken bribes from contestants to favour them, engage in acts that subvert electoral processes, like altering voter data and election results. They also actively engage in partisan campaigns while required to exercise impartiality like true arbiters. The tricks are many in their rule book. And they have been at it for ages, having excelled in 1980, the year of the greatest electoral heist in Uganda’s history. The current ones disturbing our elections learnt from those of 1980. And they refuse to reform. That’s why electoral disputes and the need for costly judicial adjudication persist.
To play about with a vote of a Ugandan is to play with the spirit of the Constitution of Uganda which expressly placed power in the hands of the people under Article one of the Constitution.
Given that we are in “kisanja no sleep, no corruption”, the time is now to deal with them.
Whenever petitions are heard and concluded, in case any electoral official (presiding officer or any staff of the Independent Electoral Commission) is found to have engaged in or facilitated electoral fraud, they should be required to meet the cost of holding a byelection (usually anything over Shs500million per constituency). Government shouldn’t suffer financial loss because of their indiscretions and collusion.
Furthermore, they should be barred from public office for at least ten years, the way it is with those convicted on corruption charges.
MPs and other leaders whose elections are successfully challenged and it’s proved that they engaged in malpractices, including those that issued forged academic credentials for nomination, should also pay the costs for holding by-elections and be barred from holding public office for ten years. Uganda cannot afford endless cycles of elections and squandering of tax payers’ money on holding repeat elections because of the misdeeds of unserious individuals.
This is not a move to stifle democratic practice and justice but a proposal to rid our politics and elections of unrepentant architects of fraud and erosion of hard-won democratic gains.
The author is the Special Presidential Assistant-Press & Mobilisation/Deputy Press Secretary-State House
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