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Uganda Elections
National parliamentary elections have occurred five
times but
only twice since independence. In all five cases, the
elections
failed to give a clear indication of popular feelings, and
on two
other occasions, scheduled elections did not even occur.
During
the protectorate period, general elections to the
Legislative
Council were held in 1958, 1961, and 1962. The 1958
elections
were flawed by the refusal of several local governments to
agree
to any voting at all. The DP won the 1961 elections by
unexpectedly winning seats in Buganda where a few of its
followers voted despite a mass boycott of the polls
organized by
the kingdom government. The Buganda seats enabled the DP
to form
Uganda's first party government under the British
governor, even
though only a minority of the national electorate had
voted for
it. Consequently, independence was delayed to permit a
second
general election.
In the final negotiations for independence, the Kingdom
of
Buganda acquired the right to elect its national
representatives
indirectly through its local assembly, the Lukiiko.
Elections to
the Lukiiko were held in February 1962. The newly formed
Kabaka
Yekka party (KY--The King Only), which reflected intense
feelings
of cultural unity among the predominantly Baganda
electorate, won
sixty-five of sixty-eight seats
(see Power Politics in Buganda
, ch. 1). The Lukiiko then elected KY members to all of the
Buganda
seats in the National Assembly. The UPC and DP split the
seats
outside Buganda, leaving no party with a clear national
mandate.
An unlikely coalition between the mildly progressive UPC
and the
aggressively ethnic-oriented KY formed the first
postindependence
government under Obote's leadership in October 1962. The
coalition unraveled soon after and was dissolved less than
two
years after independence.
Postindependence elections scheduled for 1967 were
"postponed" by Obote because of the crisis of 1966
(see Independence: The Early Years
, ch. 1). Elections organized
for
1971 were canceled by Idi Amin when he took power through
a
military coup d'état. The Uganda National Liberation Front
(UNLF), an interim government formed when the Tanzanian
army
overthrew Amin's military regime in 1979, organized the
first
national elections since independence. These elections
were held
in December 1980 under conditions that favored the UPC,
which was
still led by Obote
(see The Interim Period: 1979-80
, ch.
1).
Widespread local opinion regarded these elections as
neither free
nor fair, despite acceptance of the results by a
Commonwealth
Observer Group, which monitored them. The UPC was declared
the
winner, but most Ugandans believed it actually lost the
elections
to the DP and took power by altering the results. Thus,
before
the NRM came to power, only one set of national elections
had
been held since independence, and its results had been
hotly
disputed.
In February 1989, the NRM government organized local
and
national elections on the basis of the RC structure that
it had
created. The government announced in the middle of January
that
there would be new elections, starting only three weeks
later,
for all resistance committee positions in RCs at every
level,
including, for the first time, the NRC. At the village,
parish,
and subcounty levels, the elections followed procedures
the NRM
had already introduced to form the RCs out of the combined
membership of the resistance committees elected by the
councils
at each level. The same procedure was followed for the set
of
successive elections in urban areas, except that the
RC-IIIs were
named "wards" rather than subcounties and the RC-IVs
"division"
instead of counties. However, the RC-IIIs also gathered as
an
electoral college representing their counties or urban
divisions
to elect three representatives to the district RC, one of
whom
had to be a woman, as well as one representative to the
NRC.
Unlike other RC elections, nominees for the NRC did not
have to
win successive elections in the lower RCs in order to be
candidates. Each district RC also chose one representative
to the
NRC. Only women were permitted to run for this position.
Many of the original NRC members, who continued in
office
without facing an election in 1989, were appointed to be
election
supervisors. The only restrictions placed on candidates
were to
require them to be residents of their constituencies and
to
prohibit former members of Obote's or Amin's intelligence
agencies from becoming candidates. The use of county and
district
boundaries for constituencies removed the possibility of
gerrymandering. Nomination required completion of two
simple
forms and the support of five qualified electors.
Candidates did
not have to pay a "deposit." There was no registration of
voters.
No campaigning was allowed, and candidates could not
publicly
identify themselves with a political party. The rules
limited
candidates' campaigns to a brief introductory speech at
the time
of the elections.
The elections had to be held in sequence because the
RCs
formed a pyramid in which the electorate at each higher
level
(above RC-II) was composed of elected officials from the
next
lower level. Elections of resistance committee officials
by
voters in village and parish RCs were held only three
weeks after
President Museveni's announcement in most parts of the
country.
One week later, elections were held for subcounty
resistance
committees. The newly elected subcounty committees
immediately
traveled to their county headquarters to choose two
representatives to the district RC; the following week
they
assembled again to elect both the county's representative
to the
NRC and the county's woman representative to the district
RC.
Finally, at the end of February 1989, each district RC
(except
Gulu) elected its woman representative to the NRC.
Election was determined by public queuing behind the
preferred candidate. Contestants stood facing away from
the
queues and were not permitted to turn around to see who
was
supporting them. The use of public queuing as a voting
procedure
was sharply criticized because it opened the possibility
of
coercion. The government agreed that a secret ballot would
have
been better, but argued that for the time being, the
expense and
prospect for misuse of ballot boxes made queuing a more
desirable
method of voting. All elections were held during February
1989,
except in Gulu District and Usuk County, Soroti District,
where
they were delayed because of security problems. The Usuk
elections were held the following month and the Gulu
elections in
October 1989. The youth and workers elections had not been
held
by the end of 1990.
In the February 1989 elections, village turnout was
reported
to be high in most areas other than those where rebels
were
active. Almost all elected resistance committee members,
the only
voters permitted in higher elections, participated in
electing
NRC members and the upper RCs. Fourteen ministers and
deputy
ministers lost NRC elections. Only two women won elections
in
contests against men. Four important members of Obote's
government between 1980 and 1985 won seats in county
constituencies, and their success provided an indication
of the
absence of government interference in the voting. Most
losers
conceded that the elections were conducted fairly,
although they
frequently objected to the rules under which they had to
compete.
The most vociferous criticism came from party leaders in
the DP
and the UPC. As a party, the UPC had not been active since
the
NRM government took office. DP politicians, on the other
hand,
had run in the earlier RC elections and had won a large
number of
them. According to the DP's own calculations, in
two-thirds of
the district RCs its candidates had won 84 percent of the
seats
in elections before February 1989. DP leaders felt they
had a
good chance to win national power democratically through
the RC
system, if the DP were permitted to compete as a party.
Officials
of both parties regarded the election rules as a step by
the NRM
government to remove them from competitive political
activity.
They insisted that elections without participation by
competing
parties could not be considered democratic. The government
response was, in a meeting with the DP in 1989, to
question
whether or not political parties were necessary for
democracy.
Data as of December 1990
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