Besigye threatens to organise LC elections
What you need to know:
- Concern. Dr Besigye accuses government of finding every excuse not to hold the grassroots elections, including “amending the law to create intimidation so that people can be manipulated.”
KAMPALA.
Opposition leader, Dr Kizza Besigye yesterday launched a campaign dubbed ‘LC Elections Now’ to hold local council elections, should the NRM party government fail to conduct one soon.
The retired army Colonel accused government of finding every excuse not to hold the grassroots elections, including “amending the law to create intimidation so that people can be manipulated.”
“We are going to focus on organising an LC1 election in this country whether the regime … is supportive of it or not. We are going to be working towards our people establishing legitimate leadership in the villages and it is achievable,” Dr Besigye said during a media briefing he called at his Katonga Road offices in Kampala.
When pressed to explain how they would go about holding elections for local leaders, the four-time presidential candidate, promised to provide details in the near future.
After being declared loser in last year’s presidential elections, which he claimed to have won by 52 per cent, Dr Besigye continued with his “defiance campaign”, leading to repeated confrontations. He was placed him under virtual house arrest from voting day, February 18, 2016, until recently when the police withdrew its forces camped just outside his premises.
Dr Besigye said LC1 elections are extremely important and critical in advancing the influence of the people.
“We have never had village elections, now for 20 years. No village elections; people to choose their voices, to get through whom their voices will pass at the most local level where they live,” he added.
“Can you imagine that in 2016 you are talking about elections through lining up behind candidates? Such a primitive and dangerous method! If I am a candidate and my wife doesn’t want to vote for me, what will she do? Will she stand behind another candidate and come back home with me or vice versa. This is causing chaos and insecurity in the community. How will people freely express themselves?”
The government has repeatedly announced, then postponed when it will be holding local council elections.
The Electoral Commission (EC) under Article 61 of the Constitution has the mandate to organise, conduct and supervise regular, free and fair elections and referenda in the country.
Mr Jotham Taremwa, the EC spokesman, questioned Dr Besigye’s announcement and equated it to a stranger coming into one’s home and announcing that their father is not man enough, and consequently taking over the home.
“The Opposition is at liberty to organise their internal primaries but as far as national elections and referenda are concerned, they can only participate as voters, candidates and observers. Whoever is saying that will be confronted with the law,” Mr Taremwa said.
He said the government has committed, in the next national budget, to finance the Shs15 billion EC budget needed to organise the lower local council elections.
Attempts to speak to both Mr William Byaruhanga, the Attorney General, and his deputy were futile. Mr Byaruhanga did not take answer repeated calls to his known mobile phone number while his deputy, Mr Mwesigwa Rukutana, was inaccessible by press time.
At the same media briefing yesterday, Dr Besigye laid into the police for failing to curb the rising crime in the country. He called for the sacking or immediate resignation of Gen Kale Kayihura, the Inspector General of Police.
He also said it is next to impossible for the security agencies to fight crime without legitimate leadership at the grassroots.
“You cannot even seek to address security the way the police is masquerading when you don’t have legitimate government at the village, you can’t,” he said.
Background
Uganda last held LC1 and 2 elections in 2001 before the country reverted from the Movement’s one-party political system to a Multi-party dispensation in 2005.
Attempts to hold fresh LC elections in 2006 were thwarted by a Constitutional Court ruling on the petition by then member of the Opposition FDC party, Maj. Ruranga Rubaramira.
The major challenged the legality of the existing Local Councils elected under the one-party Movement system, a year after the country had reverted to the multiparty system.
Subsequent avowals by the government to hold the LC I and II elections have come to nothing.
In February, the government Chief Whip Ruth Nankabirwa said that “these important administrative units will be in place before end of April”.
Like previous promises, this one was soon dashed after the EC Taremwa said that Ms Nankabirwa’s announcement “could be misleading” because the Commission had not set any date for the polls. He told the country to ignore her and wait for an EC announcement of a date.
Food, economic and security crisis
“All this starts with the mismanagement of the politics and mismanagement of the politics arises because the greatest majority of the citizens are completely removed from the running, the management, the care of the country. The greatest majority of the citizens are marginalised.”
On MPs calling for a state of emergency: “The suggestion by Members of Parliament to call an emergency because there was drought last year is laughable. Drought for one year? Why should drought for one year cause an emergency in a country, a country with the largest fresh water reserves in the whole world… The emergency is the regime itself. It is the emergency that should be dealt with.”
On constitutional review commission
“There are plans to launch a constitutional review process to gather views, later take those views to their parliament and say this is what the people want. Those games must be stopped in their tracks. We have had enough games around our peoples lives. It should be understood that the structure of the dictatorship now has no moral, constitutional or legal authority to engage in a constitutional review. It doesn’t.”
“The Executive itself is contested, the other institutions are contested. We need a new mechanism and that is why a national dialogue is imperative if we are to get to a constitutional stability, we must go through a national dialogue where all stakeholders come to a table and we hammer out a new mechanism that establishes a new consensus in the country.
On the ongoing dialogue
“The dialogue going on is about the 2016 general election. It is about the recovery of our victory because I was never able to go to court to challenge what Mr Kiggundu said. I was a prisoner under illegal detention so there was a fundamental violation of the Constitution,” he said.
Dr Besigye added: “That election was not conclusive. The dialogue is to establish a mechanism for an election audit to determine what happened in 2016. That is the limited dialogue we are talking about.”