Many years ago, there used to be a popular way of street pole advertising. It always had a headline printed in bold, ‘DO NOT DARE READ THIS!’ Then below there would be an announcement of a disco. Naturally passers by would curiously proceed to read. This call against ‘vote protection’ is like that advert.
For as long as we can remember in the last 40 years, Opposition politicians in Uganda have always told their supporters that the Electoral Commission (EC) is biased. They point out the fact that one of the players in the contest who is the incumbent, President Yoweri Museveni of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM), appoints the referee (EC).
Four-time contestant for the presidency, Dr Kizza Besigye, then of the Opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party would call upon supporters to guard their vote. They would need to stick around the polling station to frustrate any mischief like ballot stuffing. When Besigye lost all of them, he cried fraud. But the Opposition would not field candidates in a big part of the country.
They therefore had no agents to sign and collect all the Declaration of Results (DR) Forms as proof of the results at polling stations. That would in a way render the ‘vote protection’ call, redundant.With time, vote protection became another rather empty cliché, repeated at campaign rallies with no concrete action to follow it through to its logical conclusion.
In 2021 the National Unity Platform (NUP) became the leading Opposition party. Its flagbearer Robert Sentamu Kyagulanyi, popularly known as Bobi Wine, continued with a Besigye-like vote protection message. Hunt for votes. Turn up in big numbers and vote in protest against NRM. Make every effort to protect the vote by staying wide eyed, near the polling station.
In case it is stolen, rise up and demand for it. Just as happened in the days of Besigye, there is no proof in 2021 that any of this happened. NUP and the entire Opposition was thin on the ground. They apparently were going through the motions by repeating a cliché with no structures in place to actualise it.
Apparently, it had become just another of those messages you hear at campaign rallies like, job creation, reducing national debt and ending nepotism and corruption, without demonstrating how it would be done. Interestingly many NRM politicians have also called on their supporters to guard their vote from alleged thieves with in the Opposition, especially in Kampala where victory is hard for NRM to come by.
The vote protection call was bound to go unnoticed. Then like a bolt out of the blue, the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) Deputy Spokesperson Col Henry Obbo made a grand entrance. He stated categorically that VOTE PROTECTION WAS FORBIDDEN! That the people should cast their vote, go home and only return at the time of counting.
Many people became curious about what was wrong with vote protection to prompt the mighty UPDF to prohibit it. It became like the poster on the street pole of old.The EC chairperson who is the gaffer of the electoral process, then came in to echo the Obbo message. Justice Simon Mugenyi Byabakama (yes, he is a judge) said that though Section 35 (4) of the Presidential Elections Act, 2005 allows voters and observers to keep 20 meters away from the voting table after voting, in reality it is not practical. Some polling stations are congested places that it would be dangerous to have 600 people hovering around the polling station. It intimidates polling officials and may cause loss of privacy and violence in case a result goes a different way at the time of tallying.
That vote protectors are ‘masqueraders’ who would be arrested. The practice at most polling stations is for people to keep coming and going. It is rare that they all sit and wait till the end. When did Justice Byabakama learn that the 20 meter rule was a recipe for disaster? He had a good five years to trigger and propose election reforms to do away with the 20-meter provision.
Did he sleep on the job?Suffice to say, the learned Attorney General on the floor of Parliament said ‘without fear of contradiction’ that people are allowed to keep 20 meters away from the polling station as stated in the law. Only the polling officials, candidates, candidates’ agents and accredited observers are allowed are allowed in the polling station. 20 meters away is not the polling station!The Chief of Defence Forces (CDF), Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba who is President Museveni’s son, issued a stern warning while speaking against hanging around the polling station and other vote-related matters. He said those who intend to cause trouble will be dealt with using ‘all the tools we have at our disposal and in accordance with the law.’
That they should vote peacefully and go home. So if you vote and stand 20 meters away from the polling station as provided for by the law, under what law and why are you bound to be dealt with? Creating a situation that calls for security agents to arrest people outside the polling station will only create an opaque situation and suspicion that waters down the integrity of the election.
It also opens a door for the security agents, many of whom have been illegally campaigning for the incumbent NRM party and President, especially in places like Buganda and Busoga where the NRM performed dismally in 2021.They may disrupt peaceful processes and cause voter intimidation and suppression as they arrest people under the grey area of ‘causing trouble.’ What is strange is that the discomfort with vote protection comes at a time when Museveni has made fresh claims of vote rigging by the Opposition in 2021.
In the past he put it at a million votes. This time it is 2.7 million illegally printed and probably stuffed votes. Museveni used to tell us from his granary of proverbs that what is put out in the open does not rot. As a vote rigging victim by presumably a huge margin, you thought he would be the most interested party in having everything in the open. From all parties, whoever is interested, standing 20 meters away from the polling station puts vote thieves on notice that they are being watched.Secondly, with all this knowledge of vote stealing of such a magnitude, Museveni did not sack the EC boss.
He instead renewed his mandate for another seven-year term in January 2024. Interestingly when Gen Kainerugaba warns against vote protection because the process is transparent with enough scrutiny since there are both local and international observers, candidates’ agents and the media, it raises an important question.
In 2021 we had all these parties at the polling stations yet his own father, Museveni was allegedly cheated. What has changed this time? What if he is cheated again?Contested elections led to a war that killed many people between 1981 and 1986. People should be allowed, if need be, in turns, to observe from a distance, to avoid complaints.