As
the world awaits the ruling in the Petition by Hon. Amama Mbabazi due Thursday,
31st March 2016, what is important is whether the judges of the
Supreme Court will be able to defend the integrity of Uganda, or make such a
ruling to inform us that surely, irregularities were there, but they were not significant
enough to affect the outcome.
Uganda
during Museveni’s leadership has had morality greatly compromised to the extent
that many people within the system cannot be ashamed of their works as long as
they help the system however rotten it is to go on.
We
are aware of the multiple irregularities that went on during the February 2016
Presidential elections. It is the summation
of these irregularities that the Supreme Court has to address. These among others included the turning off
of the social media, the removal of mobile money facilities without warning to
the general public, the failure by the electoral commission to deliver polling
materials in time to the extent that in some places these were delivered by
1.00 pm. The Electoral commission failed
in its cardinal duty to instruct the Polling Station officers to ensure that the
balancing as by the Biometric Voter verification machines balances with the
number of valid votes as added to the invalid votes. This balance rules out the possibility of
tampering with the results in what is commonly known as voter staffing.
So,
if the heroic announcement is made by the Supreme Court judges, this will be a
new chapter in the politics of Uganda.
And, to many it will be a miracle, because people expect that the judges
being appointees of Museveni, they cannot be credible enough to make a judgment
that does not favour the incumbent, yet it is such a judgment that will begin a
new chapter in Uganda. The country
cannot keep on being derailed by a few opportunists when people with integrity
look on; and there is the general belief that the Supreme court judges will
uphold the integrity expected of the Learned Friends they are to give a new
start to Uganda which is deteriorating as a few opportunists struggle to keep
their daily bread.
So,
all in all, there is the expectation of the unbelievable to happen that the
Supreme court will nullify the outcome of the 2016 Presidential elections, give
new guidelines to guide the flow of things with the emphasis being that as long
as there is consensus at the Polling station before the Declaration forms are
signed, the eventual signing should stand such that the returning officer at
the district simply gets these results as submitted and remits them to the
electoral commission, and that each candidate should have his copies of the
declaration forms from each of the polling station whether he was represented
or not. And for the sake of emphasis, the Biometric Verification machines should
generate a figure equal to the tallies
made by the representatives of the candidates as well as the sum of the valid and
invalid votes at each polling station.
