Everybody says everyone plans to rig the February 18 general election. More curiously, all front-runner presidential candidates, including NRM’s Yoweri Museveni, FDC’s Kizza Besigye, and Independent candidate Amama Mbabazi, are citing planned rigging by opponents.
Without any variation, each candidate has accused the other of plans to rig the elections. But this filters out into two distinct camps pitting NRM against the collective Opposition. So who’s telling the truth?
These counterclaims are unprecedented, confusing and distressing to the voter, who must worry that his or her vote may count for nothing.
But in all these claims, only the Electoral Commission (EC) can reassure Ugandans on the integrity of ballot processes and assert that the ballot has no weak points.
But their loud silence in each instance of these accusations is bothersome. As a first step, EC should task the presidential candidates to substantiate their claims and take action against perpetrators before the groups confront each other to sort out the mess.
Much more also hangs in the balance beyond the candidates’ spats. One such is the question about the security and reliability of the results transmission kit and dissemination system (ERTDS).
Another is the timing and applicability of the Biometric Voter Verification System (BVVS).
No doubt, BVVS aims at improving the integrity of the electoral process by authenticating voter identity.
Even so, the use of the gadget leaves several questions unanswered. First, the machine is a new introduction into our electoral system, only one month away to its deployment.
Second, EC’s trainers of trainers for the use of the gizmo have just been passed out. Of course, ETRDS allowed speedy transmission of results, but there are concerns that party agents and poll observers had poor or very poor instances of processing results in four of every 10 cases in the 2011 polls.
More worrying is that the trial run for the gadget is set for only tomorrow, hardly two weeks to the polling date. All these challenges give a very thin window to troubleshoot any technical hiccups, fine-tune personnel, and give the public confidence.
Let’s also note that the BVVS system reads only fingerprints to match a voter’s details and polling station.
This means voters with disabilities, including those with disfigured fingers, may be turned away.
Previous use of BVVS in Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia, Malawi, Rwanda and DR Congo has suffered technical hitches. No doubt, Ugandans will experience similar setbacks of BVVS machines failing to recognise fingerprints, and servers crashing.
As a minimum, EC should use the two-week period left to sort out questions of alleged poll rigging and questionable results transmission.
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