Bogus elections, costly by-elections

In both Kenya and Zambia, the concern was that there are more critical areas that could use the money spent on unnecessary by-elections.

Another difference is that in the Kenya and Zambia cases, there appears to have been a specific entity that accepted responsibility and blame, while in Uganda all concerned parties refuse to accept blame and transfer responsibility for the election fiasco to others.

The highest number of petitions is on the grounds of academic qualifications. More than 15 of the 26 MPs that have already been ejected from Parliament have been over lack of required academic qualifications. Most of those kicked-out submitted either forged documents, concocted qualifications, or documents from unrecognised institutions.

The academic requirement to be an MP in Uganda is quite low; completion of minimum formal education of Advanced Level standard or its equivalent. That is either a higher secondary level certificate or an equivalent certificate in anything. According to Uganda Bureau of Statistics figures, about 10% of Ugandans have this qualification. Many employers seeking gardeners, cleaners, and other house helps often want people at that level. It is, therefore, unclear why some parliamentary aspirants do not have this basic level of education.

“If the EC is saying verification of academic papers is not its job then what is its job?” Wakida asks. “Because it is its responsibility to ensure that the candidates comply with the electoral laws.”

Since some aspirants resort to using forged documents, in case of a dispute, the electoral law requires academic papers to be verified by the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) and the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE).

This means that although the Electoral Commission has been blamed for conducting elections that are later annulled over the dubious papers of some of the candidates, it in turn blames the NCHE and UNEB for failing to catch them.

The EC’s Taremwa says the only thing it can do concerning regarding the veracity of the academic testimonials is to avail time to members of the public to access the information presented by aspiring candidates at nomination stage and report any wrong issues.

He says of the 21 by-elections held between 2011 and 2016, only four involved non-compliance with electoral laws which is the mandate of the EC.

The by-elections that Taremwa says the EC dropped the ball are the Entebbe municipality MP election, Butambala county election, the Kasese woman MP election and the Luwero woman MP election which were nullified because of non-compliance with electoral laws.

Six of those were nullified due to voter bribery on the part of the candidates, four due to lack of the requisite academic qualification, five due to death of MPs, two due to absconding of the members and one was due to resignation.

EC is incompetent?

Despite Taremwa’s robust defense, other election experts blame the EC for the numerous cancelled election results.

Kaheru says: “My theory is and has always been; if you organise proper elections that meet the acceptable standards, then you will not suffer the consequences of byelections”. Wakida adds that the EC is the primary culprit for any omissions or commissions concerning elections.

“There is an organisation that conducts elections,” he says, “that organisation is also supposed to ensure that the process is properly conducted and that includes overseeing the vetting of candidates, how the candidate is nominated, and how the candidate has conducted himself during the entire election period.” He says the commission has the powers to nullify any election that it feels could have been conducted irregularly.

“The fact that it never cancelled any election yet there are over 150 court petitions raises questions about its competence,” he says.

“If the EC is saying verification of academic papers is not its job then what is its job?” Wakida asks. “Because it is its responsibility to ensure that the candidates comply with the electoral laws.”

Wakida says that if the EC were a competent body it would have taken over the exercise of verification of academic papers, which in his view should be the responsibility of the EC and not the candidates. “The EC can include that cost on the nomination fees,” he suggests.

Wakida says what the EC does not seem to understand is that it is its credibility that is being affected when courts annul elections. He says the major reason for challenging the elections is because “people lack confidence in the electoral body”.

Ndorwa East MP Wilfred Niwagaba also agrees. He says that instead of shifting blame, the EC should be strengthening its capacity. “The Electoral Commission is very weak and is looked at by many as Museveni’s puppet.”

But Niwagaba adds that it would be grave to blame only the EC. In a veiled reference to candidates without academic qualifications, he blames some political actors who are “becoming a nuisance”.

“They don’t want to comply with electoral laws even when they know them too well,” Niwagaba says.

He blames it on commercialisation of politics which he says has caused desperation and made politicians want to win at all costs.

Kaheeru agrees with Niwagaba that all the concerned bodies should be strengthened.

“The competence and capacity of the NCHE is also in question. The body should be equipped to effectively evaluate academic qualifications,” Kaheeru says.

Block election cheats

As the blame game rumbles on, desperate citizens want something done to stop the country from repeatedly wasting its limited public resources on unnecessary by-elections.

Kaheeru says electoral law reforms that were proposed by Civil Society Organisations and opposition parties prior to the 2016 elections would have forestalled the mess if they had not been rubbished by government.

Wakida says the solution is in strengthening the EC to enable the commission to vet the candidates well in time. He also proposes that the law should be amended to deter people caught in malpractices from participating in elections again and those found guilty of election malpractices by court to pay the costs of the by-election.

Kaheeru likes the idea but says it will require revising the legal procedures to ensure that when the courts convict a candidate of an election offence, the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) picks up the matter and pursues it as a criminal offence.

“It is only then that those found guilty of those electoral malpractices would receive harsher punishments including being barred from standing again,” says Kaheeru, “As it is now, electoral offences are just civil matters and cannot attract tough punishments.”

Niwagaba also says the DPP and Police should be pro-active to investigate the criminal element to eliminate the offenders from the country’s politics.

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editor@independent.co.ug