As the country prepares for the January 15, 2026, General Election, some political actors are urging their supporters to come out in large numbers, cast their votes, and remain at the polling stations to guard their votes. Urging people to turn up and vote for their preferred candidates is in itself a fantastic idea, but telling them not to leave the polling stations, on the pretext of guarding the votes, is tricky and might be dangerous to the voters, as it probably could disrupt the very voting and counting processes they intend to protect.
Organising popular elections is indisputably a challenging task. Bodies in charge of administering elections have the demanding function of ensuring many complex election and related processes are managed efficiently, impartially and transparently. This is because the entire process directly affects the quality and integrity of electoral processes and is a key to ensuring the rights of voters and contestants. Having a flawless voting process is, therefore, the main guardian of democratic elections, and their activities are central to fostering public confidence.
However, for a country to deliver such a clean election to the satisfaction of the voters and the candidates, it must facilitate the Electoral Commission (EC) with all the required logistical support it requires. As required by law, the EC will gazette the polling guidelines to Ugandans a few days before the polling date. These guidelines are meant to educate our people about the entire voting process and how they should conduct themselves during the voting period.
Such guidelines are not made in their boardrooms only; the EC looks at and compares other best practices across other democratic nations and then designs those that suit our system. The EC has been financed and facilitated to benchmark on how to deliver a smooth, flawless and impartial election. Therefore, it is very unfair for one to create mistrust about EC’s competence to deliver uncontested results. Consequently, all participants in the voting processes will be required to observe EC guidelines. It is perilous for one to ignore these guidelines, and these are the reasons.
First, telling people not to leave the polling stations after voting means that you are publicly declaring that you do not trust the EC and, therefore, the voters are now going to manage the voting process. This is dangerous. You cannot have people who have been emotionally charged during the campaign season, gathering in their thousands at polling stations, and you expect them to remain calm when the presiding officer begins announcing the winning candidates, to the detriment of the losers. What will you do if a nasty fight breaks out? Won’t the one police officer deployed at the polling station be overwhelmed?
For the purposes of guarding against any form of mischief, the EC deploys eight polling officials at every station, and each candidate (whether they are presidential or parliamentary) is allowed to deploy two polling agents to closely observe the whole process from material delivery, voting, vote counting and announcement. On top of these are journalists and observer groups, as long as they are accredited by the EC to witness the entire exercise.
Second, I do not think the EC has the capacity to provide sanitary requirements for hundreds of people gathering in more than 30,000 polling stations across the country! Many people overcrowding the polling stations, after voting, poses health risks as there might not be places of convenience nearby. Therefore, voters are required to vote, return home and follow the results from the many mediums of communication like radio, TV and the new media.
Trust in public institutions is a cornerstone of a functional society, because when that trust erodes, it can lead to significant disillusionment and a feeling of disempowerment. Healthy civic engagement often involves questioning institutions and holding them accountable for their performance and adherence to their mandates. Losing trust often leads to mob justice, and none of us wants this dear country to degenerate.