Africa-Press – Uganda. The issue:
Elections
Our view:
The EC too, can still push to fulfil its mission to organise, conduct free and fair elections professionally, impartially, and efficiently. This would, as the EC goals state, enable it “to promote participatory democracy and good governance for the country’s prosperity.”
The final leg of the 2021 General Election will be held today. The Local government elections will take place in all of the country’s 135 districts, 2,184 sub-counties, town councils and municipal divisions, and 10,595 parishes.
Perhaps this is the most critical of the elections for the grassroots because it chooses leaders, who include chairpersons and councillors for municipal divisions, sub-counties, and town councils. These leaders deal directly with the local level needs and service delivery.
This is why we must all set aside time and actively participate in picking these leaders for the next five years. To this regard, money and other inducements should never be the drivers of how we cast our votes today. We should avoid the reported cases of delays, voter bribery, and irregularities that marred the Youth MP polls (Daily Monitor, February 2).
Even more deplorable, a dim report by lawyers under their umbrella Legal Aid Service Providers Network (LAPSNET) says the 2021 General Election was marred by gross human rights violations that denied access to justice and law.
This blemishes claims of fairness and credibility of the General Election. The report also says the January 14 polls fell far short of international standards of a free and fair elections.
The reports maintains that many Ugandans, especially the Opposition, their supporters, media practitioners, the youth, and human rights defenders, and others have been arbitrarily arrested and detained, others tortured, and some killed.
The report say all these happened prior to the elections, especially during campaign meetings, and on the Election Day. This was captured in a story, ‘2021 polls unfair, marred by gross abuses – report (Daily Monitor, February 2, 2020.
But the Electoral Commission (EC) can still make the final rounds of elections count for something, redeem itself and reclaim its vision as “a model institution and centre of excellence in election management.”
The EC too, can still push to fulfil its mission to organise, conduct free and fair elections professionally, impartially, and efficiently. This would, as the EC goals state, enable it “to promote participatory democracy and good governance for the country’s prosperity.”
These noble ends, the EC can still achieve, by avoiding inordinate delays as was witnessed in the national Youth MP polls and ensure the polls kick off promptly at 7am and close at 4pm. As well, the counting of votes and declaration of results should be done within acceptable time limits.
