Youth engage in fist fight during the 2021 elections for the division mayor and councillors in Arua City. PHOTO | FELIX WAROM OKELLO
Uganda’s Constitution, as amended, provides for voting and division of the country into electoral constituencies under Articles 59 and 63 respectively.
According to the Electoral Commission, there are 353 constituencies and 146 districts in Uganda, this means that there are 499 positions for directly elected members of Parliament in Uganda.
The three major political parties being National Resistance Movement (NRM), National Unity Platform (NUP) and Forum for Democratic Change, with Democratic Party, Uganda Peoples Congress and JEEMA also minimally active in regards to parliamentary representation.
The Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU) also has a following at least in regards to personalities that seek to use it as their springboard to political fortune plus the independents whose numerical strength is higher than Opposition NUP party in Parliament.
In a fair contest, all these political stakeholders aspire to nominate or be nominated as candidates for these positions. Basic maths, therefore, means that in the upcoming parliamentary election cycle, conservatively at least 1,996 candidates will stand for MP seats.
To get to the prize, these potential candidates will have to have and or raise a reasonable financial war chest, constituency or district level publicity, resignation from official work for those holding public office, party nomination processes for those seeking a blessing from political parties, among other hurdles.
The implications of failure to lawfully wade through these hurdles are dire and bite excruciatingly deeper when one is elected to office and is forced to forfeit the same by courts for failure to observe electoral and other laws.
Illegal practices and election offences under parliamentary elections are provided for in the Parliamentary Elections Act. This law requires candidates to religiously abide lest everything they sweated for ends in tears.
Statistics from the Electoral Commission and the Judiciary indicate that 102 parliamentary election petitions were filed and litigated during the 2021 General Election.
Recently, there has been an outcry in legal corridors about the lack of opportunity for so-called young lawyers who are churned out yearly due to the liberalisation of the teaching of Law. However, some people insist that innovative minds can reap from within the available market space.
Election spending has been on a growth trajectory. Studies show that in the 2016 parliamentary election cycle, at least Shs24.7 billion was spent according to a report by Alliance for Campaign Finance Monitoring (ACFIM).
The young lawyers who are at the bottom of the pecking order in legal practice can reap from this windfall if they can position themselves and make a case for their purpose in the season before and during electioneering and to an extent after elections. For instance, in the statistics released by the Judiciary, many election petitions arose from the blatant disregard of basic electoral laws by candidates, which can be avoided if legal advice is sought in time.
To potential candidates, I urge you to equip your campaign arsenal with knowledgeable legal persons to help guide you through the murky waters of political campaigning. Thus, the earlier you make a budget for a campaign lawyer the better.
Any innovative ‘young’ lawyer who seeks to benefit during the season needs to refresh self with recent amendments in election laws and case law to make bank. I’d like to remind you that there are 2,184 electoral positions to fill at various levels. So imagine the potential clients if you exploit the niche earlier.
Mr Edward Mukasa is a lawyer with interests in election laws. X @mukasambogo
