Allow candidates visit public institutions

The Electoral Commission has banned presidential candidates from visiting places of worship, schools, hospitals and markets and to ensure compliance has asked police to enforce the directive.

The EC and Ministry of Health claim they do not want politics in hospitals. Yet the ban itself appears to be political!

The EC claims that presidential candidates have turned it into a habit of visiting hospitals to campaign. This is not true as there has been no reports of a rally in any hospital premise.

What is true is that candidate Kizza Besigye visited Abim Hospital in Karamoja and another health centre in western Uganda and used the conditions of the facilities to denounce the government. Candidate Amama Mbabazi was blocked from accessing Kabale Hospital.

The state of health services is a key campaign pillar for both the incumbent and his opponents, just as are many other facets of daily life.

It is, therefore, ill-advised for the ministry and the Electoral Commission to seek to shield these places from the election agenda as these are issues that are pertinent to the electorate.

The claim by Health Ministry PS Dr Asuman Lukwago and EC chairman Badru Kiggundu of invasion of patients’ privacy is unsustainanble.

But the presidential candidates don’t visit the patients in surgical theatres or in maternity rooms. The claim on keeping clinical information private is also untenable. When candidates visit a hospital, they do not read patients’ files.

If it is to avoid disrupting patients’ lives, the hospitals can issue guidelines to ensure the candidates do not campaign while inside.

Also the candidate can be restricted on the number of people to enter with and be given a specific time to leave. Hospital officials could also accompany the candidate to ensure compliance with the guidelines.
This week, presidential candidate Mbabazi was blocked from seeing a collapsed bridge in Acholi. What disruption was he causing? Then why ban candidates from accessing schools? Students and pupils are now in holidays, so EC cannot claim disruption of studies.

So how is this ban supposed to be enforced in churches? Will police block the candidates from going for worship? This whole hullaballoo seems to have been sparked by presidential candidate Kizza Besigye’s visit to Abim government hospital last month. The media coverage of the embarrassing state of the hospital during that visit is what seems to have sparked the EC ban.

Fortunately later, the government started hasty renovations at the hospital. Police have since been deployed at various government hospitals to block candidates and stop exposure of further rot.

EC should let the candidates visit every place of election interest. The only intervention should be to regulate the visits but not to stop them.