Genuine electoral reforms needed

The Supreme Court in 2016 noted the need for electoral reforms and made a number of recommendations

COMMENT | MICHAEL ABONEKA | Uganda will go to polls again in 2021 which is barely two years from now. The electioneering year will start next year (2020) as the Electoral Commission and some Political Parties have already launched their roadmaps towards the 2021 elections.

I have observed and participated in Uganda’s elections for some time and one thing remains common, the rush to put things in order towards election time. We always want to do things last minute; including forming new constituencies that were not earlier planned for days towards elections so that some political rewards can be made.

For all the elections we have held, a number of observers have released observations and made recommendations and then packed their bags and left us promising to come back again to do the same thing in a another election.

There have been processes for development of reforms that go deep to the electoral democracy and Uganda and it is unfortunate that these proposals are deliberately ignored for reasons unknown to us. Prior to 2016 elections, there were proposed reforms from various actors. The most profound was the Citizens’ Compact on Free and Fair Elections which was birthed out of the National Citizen Consultations on Free and Fair Elections-the first of its kind. The Citizens Compact contains a number of great proposals but they have all been shelved.

After the Elections, the National Consultative Forum started the process of harmonising all the proposals for consideration before the 2021 elections. A number of proposals were made by the various political parties and up to now, no one knows where this process ended. There have been several processes and events but with similar outcomes; shelving of ideas and waiting for the next election.

In the Election Petition no.1 of 2016, the Supreme Court observed the need for electoral reforms and made a number of recommendations such as revising the number of days from 30 to 60 in which to file an election petition, amendment of rules to use oral evidence in such petitions, use of technology in voting, an electoral law  to provide for sanctions against any State organ or officer who violates the Constitutional duty to allocate to candidates equal time and space on state owned media, amendment of the Presidential Elections Act to bar giving of donations during election time, prohibition of public servants in campaigns, all electoral reforms must be worked on within two years of the tenure of the Parliament among others.