UGANDA'S FLAWED ELECTIONS: Nominations exercise critique

58. We were impressed by the readiness of the administration to provide essential security escorts so as to enable the DP candidates to travel to Arua for nomination day, but found this contrasted with a complete absence of sympathy when we took up the matter of the rejection of their papers.

59. In the event, no poll took place in Arua or Moyo. However in the light of the above we must comment that if the preperation of registers is, as by Ugandan law it would appear to be, an essential preliminary to the holding of an election, this condition was demonstrably not fulfilled in any of the three West Nile districts which, between them, contained 8 constituencies. Our view in this- is confirmed by a list of constituencies and registered voters brought out by the Electoral Commission in which the number of registered voters in the 8 West Nile constituencies is an eloquent blank. The list appears as Annex 2.

60. Nor are we aware of any amendment to the law by which this requirement may have been waived. The substitution of an affidavit therefore appears to lack any basis in law. Lest we appear pedantic in this regard, we would add that the position adopted by the Military Commission was that the Electoral Commission had no power to waive any legal requirements.

61. Having said this, we acknowledge that political considerations of territorial integrity and national sovereignty may have prompted the Military Commission's decision to proceed with elections irrespective of conditions on the ground. In our view many of the ensuing problems could have been avoided if all the political parties had been taken into confidence and appropriate amendments made to the electoral law.

62. Moyo. Quite apart from the question of there being no registers of voters in Moyo, it was alleged to us that the prospective DP candidate had, on nomination day, been forcibly detained by the Ugandan Army. The prospective candidate went so far as to claim that his UPC opponent was involved in his detention. The Electoral Commission told us that all security matters were outside their purview. When we took the matter up with the Chairman of the Military Commission, we were informed that the prospective candidate had become suspect on account of collaboration with the invading forces and that the President General of the DP, Mr. Ssemogerere, had been warned about this in advance.

63. However, the UPM also alleged that their candidate for Moyo constituency had been detained by soldiers and after being released, was intercepted again together with his supporters just outside the nomination centre and was not released until five minutes after midday. We were unable to obtain any official response to this allegation.

64. Tororo. In Tororo district, the UPM claimed that two of its candidates had been disqualified on the grounds that they did not produce evidence of their educational qualifications or, in lieu, certificates of proficiency in English. As one of these was well known to have been a lecturer at Makerere University and the other was a Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs in the Government, we could not escape the conclusion that the law was being applied with needless rigidity.

The letter of the law does not make the production of proof of educational qualifications mandatory, though in practice such evidence was tendered by most other candidates, UPM candidates among them.
65. Lira and Apac. Again in the seven constituencies in Lira and Apac, the DP alleged that on nomination day all but one of its candidates were forcibly prevented by UPC supporters from reaching the nomination centre. Only its candidate for Apac North managed to get as far as the nomination centre but the 12 supporters with him were chased away and as a result his proposer and seconder were not present as required by law.

66. When asked by the Group what action the Electoral Commission proposed to take regarding these allegations, the Chairman replied that the Commission was awaiting the reports of the Returning Officers concerned and would let the Group know as soon as they were received. Nothirg further was heard from the Commission about them.

67. Kasese. The events in Kasese district troubled us deeply. There the nomination papers of all three DP candidates were accepted, notified to the Electoral Commission, published by the Electoral Commission and gazetted on 5 December 1980. Then on 8 December 1980, almost a fortnight after nomination day and barely 36 hours before the polls were to open, Radio Uganda announced that the Chairman of the Electoral Commission had declared the nominations of all three candidates to be null and void on the grounds that the nomination papers had been submitted after 12 noon and only accepted by the returning officer under duress. Our Chairman met immediately with the Chairman of the Military Commission and then with the Chairman of the Electoral Commission to discuss the matter, and members of the Group visited Kasese to make their own independent enquiries on the spot.

After they had reported back, our Chairman met again with the Chairman of the Electoral Commission and told him that we could not accept that the three nominations were invalid. A later radio announcement quoted the Returning Officer for Kasese as claiming sole responsibility for the reversal, but we are satisfied that the facts are as originally stated in the radio announcement, namely that it was the Electoral Commission which had annulled the nominations.

68. We were unable to accept the explanation given to us by the Chairman of the Electoral Commission. It is quite clear that the nomination papers of all three DP candidates were tendered prior to 12 noon. When we inspected the nomination papers in question we noticed that a clumsy attempt had been made to alter the time of receipt from 11.58 a.m. to 12.05 p.m. in respect of the last DP candidate to be processed.

69. Even if the later time be true, the returning officer in question admitted to us that he did not open his office for nominations until 9.30 a.m., and members of his staff placed the time as being even later. Additionally, the returning officer admitted that all three DP candidates were present when his office opened, and we verified this independently. We were also provided with a copy of a letter dated 27 November from the returning officer to the Electoral Commission (Annex 3) which unequivocally states that at least the nominations of the first two DP candidates had been processed by 12 noon. At no stage did the returning officer suggest to members of our Group that the nomination papers of the prospective candidates were other than as required by law.

70. We immediately took the matter up with both the Electoral Commission and the Military Commission, as we knew that sufficient election materials were already en route to Kasese to enable polling to take place in all three constituencies. The Electoral Commission endeavoured to explain away all that had taken place on the basis that they were merely acting to correct a clerical error which had occurred within the Electoral Commission's secretariat. The reply from the Chairman of the Military Commission dated 9 December 1980 appears in Annex 1.,

71. In all the circumstances we have no option but to conclude that the action taken by the Electoral Commission in declaring the nominations to be null and void was contrary to law and had no basis in fact.