Once again Ugandans are being summoned to
prepare for general elections, in 2016. This would be the fifth such elections
organised by the Museveni regime, in five yearly intervals, since it came to
power in 1986. All have been defined by wholesale fraud and rigging ,
orchestrated terror and intimidation ,
and the massive diversion of
tax-payers’ money and international development assistance to fund NRM campaigns and vote-buying .
All this is well-established and well-documented.
After this series of sham elections , it
now is absolutely clear that the Museveni/Kiggundu electoral management system
, that is designed and entirely controlled
and orchestrated by the Museveni regime , will inevitably produce more of the same . That system is inherently incapable of
delivering free and fair elections. Any general elections conducted under
current auspices and arrangements will therefore be a fraud. Discussion about 2016 should be viewed in
this light.
That is why we , the undersigned political
parties , civil society organisations , and leaders , acting together , in a
non-partisan spirit and on behalf of the
people of Uganda , demand the urgent establishment of a new system for organizing
and managing elections that can deliver genuinely free and fair elections.We put forward the following Basket of Demands,
as the minimum prerequisites, for free and fair elections in our country. In
this Basket of Demands, we identify and undertake to eliminate the chief
mischiefs which have bedevilled previous elections.
1. New Electoral Commission . We must have new, independent and impartial
Electoral Commission. The current Electoral Commission is an integral part of
the electoral rigging machine of the NRM regime. A new commission must be
constituted on the basis of a new modality agreed upon by all stakeholders.
2. New voters’ register . A new, clean and verifiable register of voters
is an absolute necessity in order to ensure free and fair elections. The
register composed by the current electoral commission is fatally flawed,
because of fraud, manipulation, and incompetence. It cannot in anyway serve as
the basis for organising free and fair elections.
3. Role of security forces and
militia . There should be no involvement of
security forces, including militia groups, in the electoral process. The role
of the police should be strictly to act impartially to ensure public order. In previous elections, we have witnessed
massive partisan deployment of the military, police and militia by the regime,
all to terrorise the population and rig the elections in favour of the NRM.
4. Massive diversion of public funds . New
control and monitoring mechanism must be
put in place , to prevent the NRM and the president from raiding the central bank , ministries , and
international aid accounts , in order to
finance NRM campaigns and to fund massive vote-buying .
5. Demarcation of electoral boundaries . The
demarcation of all electoral boundaries, particularly parliamentary
constituencies and district units, should be effected on objective and
verifiable criteria. In this regard, we reject the presidential penchant for
arbitrary and illegal demarcations of electoral boundaries.
6. Freedom to organise and assemble .There
should be full guarantee, in practice, of the basic freedoms that constitute
absolute prerequisites for any meaningful political activities anywhere. Of
particular salience are freedoms of assembly and organisation. These freedoms
should be in vigour at all times, as well as in elections season. Today in
Uganda, these freedoms are conspicuous by their very absence and suppression. Political
parties and dissenting groups are not free to organise, assemble or protest. They
are routinely and brutally blocked. This renders the claim of multiparty
democracy as well as the prospects of free and fair elections, completely fictional.
7. Selection of presiding officers. We must
establish new criteria and process for selection of presiding officers, to
ensure their independence and non-partisanship.
8. Processing of electoral materials. Representatives of political parties must be
fully involved throughout the process of designing , printing ,
transporting , distribution and storage
of electoral materials .
9. Ensuring integrity of tallying process. Votes for presidential and parliamentary
candidates must be tallied and announced at the constituency. Arrangements must
be put in place to ensure that representatives of political parties accompany
ballot boxes from polling stations to the tallying centres at constituency and
district levels. Also, crucially, the
role of computers and computerisation in the tabulation of results must be
carefully reviewed, as this has proved to be a major avenue for grand-scale rigging.
10. Adjudicating presidential
election dispute . There is need to agree on a new
process, which commands legitimacy and confidence all round, for adjudication
of any dispute concerning the outcome of presidential election.
In addition to this Basket of Demands, which
is specifically concerned with the establishment of a new electoral system for organising
elections, we also demand the reinstatement of the presidential term limit of
two terms of five years each .This is a critical related issue. Under this dispensation,
no person who has ever served or will have served as president of Uganda for
two terms would be eligible to contest for the presidency.
In putting forward this Basket of Demands
for Free and Fair Elections NOW, we wish to stress the following points.
n The issue of a new electoral management system needs to be addressed
by a National Consultation, a forum of all stakeholders, with a view to
garnering national consensus on the matter. That consensus would then form the basis for
necessary constitutional and legislative action by Parliament. We call for the
immediate convening of such a forum.
n Any dialogue about a new electoral management system should not be
open-ended to avoid deliberate delaying tactics, it must be time-bound. We
shall allow until the end of April 2014, for firm commitments and arrangements
to be in place for establishing a new electoral management system. It is
at that point that we shall
review the situation , draw necessary conclusions , and chart the way forward , based on response and action by all stakeholders , and in particular the regime .
n The ‘roadmap’ for 2016, which is being put forward by the
Museveni/Kiggundu commission, is unacceptable
. It is in effect a pathway to fraudulent and sham elections. To arrive at our destination of free and fair
elections, we must first of all overhaul and reconstitute the electoral management
system itself into a credible process.
Today we call on all Ugandans to
join in this campaign, the campaign to demand Free and Fair Elections NOW. This is a non-partisan national project that
brings together democracy-seeking and patriotic Ugandans of all shades and affiliations. We are deeply pained by the state of our
country and the condition of our people.
We are united in our common resolve to effect democratic change and save
our country from catastrophe.
Free and Fair Elections NOW !
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