Let us make poll reforms now

President Museveni recently stirred controversy with claims to the effect that the Opposition National Unity Platform (NUP) party was the recipient of one million votes more than it was meant to have garnered during the 2021 General Election.

 According to the President, this was thanks to technical glitches experienced with the biometric machines meant to help Electoral Commission (EC) personnel with voter identification and verification during the elections. The President’s claims have raised questions about the operations of the EC; the veracity of the outcome of that particular election and; the electoral processes as a whole. The EC has yet to pronounce itself on the President’s claims and on what it was that caused the technical glitches, on which he blames the alleged rigging in favour of NUP. 

It is, however, important that the country addresses itself to those issues that have been making it practically impossible for the country to hold a free, and fair controversy-free election. Whereas the Supreme Court has never overturned any election, the same court has at different points in time and in the disposal of different cases agreed that the processes had fallen short of acceptable standards of free, fair and credible elections. Most of the factors that made the judges arrive at those conclusions are known and documented. Some of them have been in the public domain and with Parliament and other relevant organs of the State. 

What is required is selfless action on the part of the Executive and the Legislature. The President must take the high road and take the lead in fixing what is pegging back the country’s growth as a democracy. Museveni promised 10 years ago while delivering the 2014 State-of-the-Nation address, that he would deliver reforms “within a year”. 

The same year, the Citizens Compact which proposed some progressive reforms that would have possibly improved the electoral framework and future elections was unveiled in Kampala. It is not too late for the President to deliver on his promise from 10 years ago. It is also not yet too late for the government to pick some of civil society’s proposals on how electoral deficits that had plagued previous elections could be fixed. It is, however, important that we begin on the process of reform before political temperatures begin to rise. 

That should help us avoid stampeding relevant actors and institutions into hasty decisions that might come back to bite the nation. Now is the time to commence the process of reform.