Poll ground not level - EU envoy

Yes, even the European Union has conceded that the ground is tilted in favour of the incumbent as we draw closer to the polls, reports Daily Monitor's Tabu Butagira

With just six weeks to next month’s ballot, a senior diplomat representing one of Uganda’s major donors has declared that the playing field is not level for all presidential candidates.

Ambassador Vincent De Visscher (in picture), the head of the European Union Delegation to Uganda, tells this newspaper in an exclusive interview that the opposition is facing “harassment and intimidation”.

“I note that particularly opposition parties still encounter difficulties in campaigning, in holding rallies, time to time harassment, maybe intimidation but also access to the media,” he said.

Opposition complaints
The Inter-Party Cooperation, an amalgam of four opposition parties, says private FM radio owners, allegedly arm-twisted by State operatives, have denied paid-for talk shows to their presidential flag bearer, Dr Kizza Besigye, more than a dozen times.

Mr Olara Otunnu, the Uganda Peoples Congress presidential candidate, has alleged that security operatives last month abducted his agent in Masaka and confiscated the ‘blue books’ the party uses to collect voters’ signatures that will back a petition to oust the Dr Badru Kiggundu-led Electoral Commission.

Ambassador De Visscher said: “I hope that in the coming weeks, one can make an effort to ensure the playing field will improve.”

These problems echoed by the diplomat, who leaves Uganda this week, were previously raised by the Max Van den Berg-led EU Election Observation Mission in 2006.

The Supreme Court confirmed these anomalies when then Forum for Democratic Change party candidate, Dr Besigye, dragged the Electoral Commission and President Museveni, the winner, to court alleging that year’s vote had been stolen.

Ambassador De Visscher says he is impressed some recommendations made by the 2006 EU election monitoring team such as reforming electoral laws had been implemented by the government.

The legislative changes, he said, was partly a result of the 2007 and 2008 stakeholder’s workshops on multi-party democracy which the EU organised to strike preliminary consensus among various stakeholders.

“I’m very pleased to say the campaign continues to be peaceful and non-violent which is very important,” he said, “I hope that the coming election will remain peaceful and non-violent, allowing the people to express freely their votes.”

Daily Monitor interviewed the outgoing envoy of the 27-member EU during on Christmas Eve, before supporters of the ruling NRM party allegedly torched two vehicles belonging to an opposition parliamentary flag bearer in Ngoma, Nakaseke District.

Up until now, the campaigns that have attracted eight presidential candidates, had largely been free of violence.

Ambassador De Visscher, who took up his posting to Uganda shortly after the 2006 vote and departs weeks to the next one, said he persuaded Parliament and political party leaders to embrace reforms crucial for improving the electoral process.

Electoral law
These included changing electoral laws and cleaning of the national voters’ register by the EC that has uploaded it online for public scrutiny, he said.

The envoy said whereas Parliament appropriated a certain package of state resources that Mr Museveni, can, as the incumbent President, use while canvassing for votes as NRM flag bearer, public resources overall should not be abused to buoy electoral fortunes of a particular party or candidate.

“I hope that other ministers that do not enjoy the privileges of the head of government will not use official vehicles and other government assets [for campaigns], which will [give them] undue advantage over their opponents,” he said.

In the interview to be published in full on Sunday, Ambassador De Visscher calls for resignation of ministers implicated in corruption scandals, a check on exploding population and says President Museveni is “a very capable, visionary politician”.

Do not miss full interview in Inside Politics in the Sunday Monitor

Polls face delay as FDC goes to court

It's true; FDC has dragged the Electoral Commission to the High Court over non issuance of voters' cards, reports Daily Monitor's Lydia Mukasa, Alfred Wandera & Mercy Nalugo

Kampala

The February 18 presidential election could be deferred to a later date following a suit filed by the Forum for Democratic Change in the High Court, seeking a declaration that the Electoral Commission be compelled to issue voters’ cards.

FDC through its lawyer, Mr Wandera Ogalo, on December 22 filed a suit against the national electoral body over its failure to issue voters’ cards to over four million newly-registered voters. This comes after the EC’s announcement late last year that it will not issue new voters’ cards for the 2011 general elections.

Rigging fears.

The party says EC’s decision to allow the four million people vote without cards will lead to abuse of the electoral process and is likely to culminate in an unfair poll.


If court tolerates the suit, the EC will be forced to print voters’ cards within the remaining one-and-half months to polling day, which may not be practicable given the financial, time and other logistical constraints.

Electoral Commission’s Secretary Sam Rwakoojo, however, contends that Section 35(3) of the amended Presidential Elections Act, 2010, provides for voting without voters’ cards.

The section states that where a person does not have a voters’ card but is able to prove to the presiding officer or polling assistant that their name and photograph are on the voters register, the presiding officer or polling assistant shall issue them with a ballot paper to vote.

Mr Rwakoojo yesterday told this newspaper that people have been allowed to vote without cards. “A number of people have lost their voters’ cards and some have left them in the banks as identification cards. What do you do to such people? ” he asked.


But Mr Ogalo, in the pleadings before court, argues that Section 35(3a), as amended, only applies to voters who registered before last year’s registration exercise and were issued with voters’ cards but either lost them or are have otherwise been damaged.

“The Electoral Commission has issued a blanket decision not to issue voters’ cards to the recently-registered people. This means that there is no basis for identification whatsoever since they have never been issued with the voters’ cards, and it only offers room for election malpractices,” Mr Ogalo said.

FDC now wants court to quash EC’s blanket decision which also provides that the Ministry of Internal Affairs will issue the voters’ cards after the February polls.


The party says EC has a statutory duty to design, print, and issue voters’ cards to voters whose names appear in the register, and accuses it of deliberately refusing to fulfill its obligation in respect to the four million voters who registered last year.

Ms Salaam Musumba, the party vice president in charge of eastern region, in her affidavit in support of the case, claims that the four million voters risk being disenfranchised by the electoral body. “I know that EC disenfranchised many voters by deleting their names from the voter’s register in 2006 having read the presidential petition judgement of the Supreme Court of 2006,” Ms Musumba stated.

The case has been fixed for hearing on January 12 before Justice Eldad Mwangushya.
Meanwhile, four presidential candidates yesterday protested the EC’s refusal to let Ugandans cast their vote without voters’ cards.

Dr Kizza Besigye (IPC), Olara Otunnu (UPC), Beti Kamya (UFA) and Abedi Bwanika (PDP) put forward their demands while meeting religious leaders in Kampala.

Besigye rules out rigging in polls

Even the  Supreme Court ruled that Museveni rigged the last presidential election. But now Dr.Besigye has said Museveni will rig no more because all his tricks are known, reports Daily Monitor's David Mafabi

Mbale

Unlike previous ones, next year’s elections will not be rigged, the Inter Party Co-operation flag bearer, Dr Kizza Besigye, has said. Addressing a rally in Bufumbo Sub-county in Mbale District yesterday, Dr Besigye said he has spent the past five years understanding how the ruling party has always stolen the vote from him.

Learnt tricks
Dr Besigye, who is also leader of the Forum for Democratic Change party, in 2001 and 2006 unsuccessfully contested the presidential election results in the Supreme Court which, on both occasions, found that while there was non-compliance with electoral laws including rigging, its combined effect was not enough to affect the result.

This time, he said, the FDC has been preparing for the 2011 elections for the last five years and his party now knows what to do, where to deploy and how to overcome rigging that has been characterising Uganda’s elections since 1996.

“In 2001, I just shot into the race to contest as a president without planning and preparing for the rigging. This is what gave them an opportunity to rig. In 2006, I was in prison most of the time and this provided them with another avenue for the massive rigging,” he said.

“I did not even have enough time to move to all villages. But now we have been preparing for these elections for five years, nobody will rig them and go free, nobody, we are ready for anything.” He added: “I heard reports that while addressing people in Teso, President Museveni said he is going nowhere. If he has the power to stay then why does he go around the country making empty promises after 25 years? He will go and he won’t rig this time.”

New strategy
The IPC flag bearer, who has changed strategy, canvassing for votes deep in the villages unlike previously stopping in the urban areas, addressed crowds on the sticking issues of widespread poverty, poor education and how to improve production and income from agriculture in the relatively remote villages of Bufumbo, Buukonde, Wanale, Bubyangu on the remote slopes of Wanale ridge of Mt. Elgon.

He also traversed the villages of Bushiende, Busiu, and Busoba before addressing a rally at Mbale Municipality at Mbale SS Grounds. He said the IPC is riding on the declining support of President Museveni and his NRM with election statistics from the last three polls indicating that the support for the party was dwindling.

Game of numbers
“In 1996 President Museveni under Movement scored 75 per cent of the total vote, in 2001, he dropped to 69 per cent and in 2006 he came down to 57 per cent. “With this consistent decline in support, it indicates IPC is heading to State House in 2011 and nobody will rig for NRM even the army cannot do this because we are ready to retain some of them who will behave well,” said Dr Besigye.

Last night, President Museveni’s political assistant Mr Moses Byaruhanga denied the accusations of rigging. “We have never rigged an election, and we shall beat Besigye hands down. We do not need to rig in order to beat Besigye,” he said.

Additional reporting by Isaac Imaka