Isn’t the EC taking on excess baggage?

By Paul Waibale SeniorThe Electoral Commission (EC)has the awkward habit of making dubious pronouncements whenever Ugandans are on the verge of casting their votes in various elections. One of the latest pronouncements was the ban of all fundraising activities while local council’s election campaigns are in progress. Presumably this was an attempt to ensure that the ground in the electoral process is level.The EC’s pronouncement provokes a number of interesting questions for which the answers are not any less interesting. Perhaps the most stimulating question generated by the ban on fundraising activities is whether the status of the EC’s pronouncement is de jure or merely de facto. In a bid to verify the status quo I perused the Electoral Commission Act of l997 in search for a legal provision on which the pronouncement could have been based.I could not, as a layman, locate any provision that vested in absolute terms, powers in the Electoral Commission to initiate such pronouncements. But I was persuaded to the view that the Act embodies some articles which could, by liberal interpretation, legitimatise the Commission’s action, which I quote: Article l2 (l) (e) states that one of the functions of the Commission is “to take measures for ensuring that the entire electoral process is conducted under conditions of freedom and fairness.” Under Article l2 (l) (e) the Commission has a duty “to take steps to ensure that there are secure conditions necessary for the conduct of any elections in accordance with this Act or any law.”Article l2 (l) (g) imposes on the Commission the duty “to ensure that candidates campaign in an orderly and organised manner.It can, therefore, be argued that banning fundraising activities is a step by the Commission to execute its legal obligation to ensure that the elections are free and fair. But, of course, this precipitates the issue of how far the EC can stretch the amorphous authority which the Act seems to grant with lavish generosity. One wonders whether, in the absence of acknowledged boundaries, the Commission could use the same provisions to ban perfectly legitimate activities, such as going to night clubs to share drinks with friends, some of whom might be candidates or campaign managers. Be that as it may, the issue of legality is just the tip of the iceberg. There is a host of other questions on parade, although some of them may, prima facie, sound hypothetical. Unfortunately, the blanket ban on fundraising activities does not seem to recognise the fact that there are several types of fundraising activities which, by their very nature, fall outside the orbit of banning pronouncements.A few examples will suffice. It is common knowledge that upon somebody’s death, relatives, friends, wellwishers, and the Abataka stage an impromptu fundraising activity to collect money (amabugo) to help in meeting the funeral expenses. The funeral expenses include, among others, the coffin, building the grave and feeding the mourners. If the Electoral Commission regulations were to be strictly observed, there would be no such fundraising to meet funeral expenses if one died while the electoral campaigns were raging on. But who would care about the ban, anyway? Similarly, a group of relatives, friends, and wellwishers who had been meeting regularly to raise funds to help finance somebody’s wedding ceremony would, following the Commission’s pronouncements, have to abandon the venture, and perhaps postpone the wedding. Does it make sense?And what about the hundreds of thousands of Christians who every Sunday raise funds in their churches all over Uganda? Will they all attract the wrath of the EC for breaching the ban on fundraising activities?I am aware of the argument that the ban is intended to curb the use of fundraising meetings by candidates to sway voters by “coughing big” in support of the project. But I submit that banning such fundraising activities can prohibit candidates from using other fora to make offers that have political strings attached. If I may elaborate, the ban on fundraising activities cannot stop a candidate from attending a church service to conveniently offer a large sum of money for repairing the roof of the church. It cannot prevent a candidate from driving a load of sand or bricks to a school or hospital in his constituency to assist in the construction of new latrines. He will then make sure that the news of his generous contributions is broadcast far and wide by the FM radio stations and accorded appropriate coverage in the newspapers. It is pertinent to observe that those contributions by the candidate are donations for worthwhile causes, which cannot be described as fund raising activities. Attending burial ceremonies and offering big sums of amabugo, duly acknowledged at the graveside, is another trick whereby the commission’s ban can easily be circumnavigated. There is a host of other ways that can do the trick but the few I have mentioned suffice to demonstrate the futility of the EC’s pronouncement against fund raising activities. If the EC considers it appropriate to pronounce bans that do not have half a chance of success, then God save us all.