Find common ground on campaign rallies

The meeting of the Electoral Commission (EC) with presidential candidates to find a common ground on a safer campaign is commendable.

This was well-timed if only to defuse the tension between security agencies and the 10 Opposition presidential candidates in the 2021 race.

The second key talking point should’ve been on observing the standard operating procedures (SOPs), which are in force to stop the spread of Covid-19 during the campaigns. 

Regrettably, the police found it unmerited to tackle the raging violence and brutality their officers have targeted at Opposition candidates and fans. See ‘Retired bishop Kaggwa urges police to stop using tear gas’ [Daily Monitor, November 17, 2020]. 

Given the two cardinal issues of violence and safe campaigning, this meeting should have included security agencies as one of the principal actors in the violence and brutal clashes witnessed in the two weeks of campaigns. 

To calm the violence meted out to some presidential candidates, the EC should’ve paid heed to their cries.  See ‘Stop police brutality, candidates urge EC’, Daily Monitor, November 17, 2020. 

Here, the right thing for the EC to enforce, as an overseer of the 2021 General Election, was to have played arbiter between the police, their back up security agencies, the presidential candidates and their fans. 

This volatile situation demanded that the EC should’ve invited both the presidential candidates, their agents and the police top leadership for another round of dialogue to iron out their differences and build consensus for a peaceful campaign. 

But by the EC dodging to squarely address the issue of violence and warning only Opposition presidential candidates against violating SOPs to stop likely spread of Covid-19 during the campaign, makes the EC come off as biased and one-sided judge. 

Worse for the poll body, there is no way it can direct candidates to enforce wearing of masks when government has failed on its mandate of providing the requisite masks countrywide, as it promised.

This is not to say the candidates and fans should go out to public meetings or rallies without wearing masks, and candidates address crowds instead of controlled meetings. 

All we are pushing for is non-selective but an all-round application of EC guidelines on campaigns and SOPs to stop the probable spread of Covid-19. 

The EC surely, as all else, know that NRM party candidate Yoweri Museveni has commendably stuck to addressing controlled audiences.

But the EC should also be honest and admit that Mr Museveni’s camp of musicians and fans have freely and uninterrupted by police, held  parallel packed and noisy town street processions without masks and without observing any SOPs, just as have the Opposition candidates and fans. 

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