The republic of uganda in the supreme court of uganda at kampala

Had effect of promoting election of 1st Respondent:

The Petitioner pleaded that the statement had the effect of promoting the 1st Respondent’s election. He asserted in the petition, and repeated in the accompanying affidavit that:

“……….voters were scared of voting for me who by necessary implication was destined to fail carry out the functions of the demanding office of President and serve out the statutory term.”

Later, in his affidavit in reply he added that the statement had been on a website, from where it could be accessed and down-loaded. He also deponed that in an explanation given to a press conference on 11th March, which was broadcast by various radio stations and was published the following day in the New Vision and Monitor newspapers (copies of which were annexed to that affidavit), the 1st Respondent had said that by the statement he had meant that “State House is not a place for the invalid. A President should be someone in full control of his faculties both mental and physical” The Petitioner reiterated:

“…..as a result of the 1st Respondent’s said statements, my agents... and some of my supporters expressed their concern with my health status and sought for my explanation.”

I am constrained to observe again, that the Petitioner pleaded what was not necessary to prove. To establish the illegal practice, it was not necessary to prove that the statement had the effect of promoting the election of the Respondent. What was required was to prove that the statement was published for the purpose of promoting or procuring the election of the 1st Respondent. As it happened no evidence was produced to prove the alleged effect, and not surprisingly therefore it was not canvassed in counsel’s submissions. The Petitioner’s counsel instead argued that from the evidence before the Court, the only rational inference that could be drawn as to the 1st Respondent’s motive in publishing the statement, was that he intended to undermine the Petitioner’s candidature thereby promoting his own. He stressed that this view was confirmed by the 1st Respondent in the explanation he gave at the press conference. The 1st Respondent’s counsel countered with an argument that the Respondent would not have addressed the statement to an American magazine, if its purpose had been to win himself votes in Uganda.

The 1st Respondent admitted making the statement, but did not disclose what his purpose was in making it. Ordinarily it is not difficult to discern the purpose of a statement from its context. However, the statement in this case, was not reported in its full context. Three documents, each containing a report about the original statement, were annexed to the Petitioner’s affidavit, namely:

(a) the article in Monitor of Thursday, March 08, 2001 under the title “Besigye has AIDS, Museveni tells American paper”;

(b) printout of an article also dated Thursday, March 8, 2001, under the title “Three’s a Crowd in Love and Politics” from the website: http: // www.time.com.; and

(C) the article in Time magazine of March 12, 2001, under the title “The Race of his Life”,

In each article the statement is put in such different setting that, but for the Respondent’s admission that he made it, it might have been difficult to place reliance on any of the reports. That notwithstanding, however, there was sufficient material in the evidence before the Court from which the 1st Respondent’s motive in making the statement was discernable. The statement was made in the middle of the election campaign. It was made to a journalist who was apparently covering the 1st Respondent’s campaign trail, albeit for a foreign magazine. It was made about a candidate who was posing the biggest challenge to the 1^st Respondent. On the eve of polling day, at a press conference, and also at a rally at Kololo airstrip the Respondent did not opt to play down the remarks he had made to the foreign journalist, which he could have done if the remarks were not intended for the public targeted by the local media. Instead he chose to explain the statement to the media, which explanation he must have known, would reach out to the electorate by polling day. Because the making of the explanation was not disputed, I was able to rely on the newspapers as to what he said on 11th March. In its issue of Monday, March 12, 2001, the Monitor newspaper published under the heading: “Museveni explains his AIDS remarks”, an article which read in part:

“President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has admitted that he made remarks about Col Kiiza Besigye’s alleged HIV status to a Time Magazine journalist, but said he was quoted out of context. ‘I made the remarks but my friend Marguerite (Michaels, the author) put it out of context.’ Museveni told journalists at State House in Nakasero. Museveni said he believed State House is not a place for the invalid. “A President should be someone fully in control of his faculties both mental and physical’ he said, adding that there was no reason ‘to wait for someone to get into office and fall sick’