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

Arrest of Commissioner Miiro and Excess Cards

Commissioner Miiro and her two high ranking Commission officials raise yet another complication in electoral process. The full magnitude of the excess ballot papers and voters cards, which may have been spewed out by her group, will never be known. Because at the time we heard the petition there was a criminal case pending against Miiro and the other two officials, we were told that the principle of sub-judice rule bars as from receiving evidence on or discussing the question of her arrest and the cards. I am doubtful whether in the context of the petition this principle still holds good any more. In any case our court and the criminal court are different courts applying different standards of dealing with evidence. Whatever the case the fact that the number of voters cards and ballot papers appears not to be known and the arrest of a Commissioner and senior officers of her staff who were allegedly in possession of electoral materials throws a cloud of doubt about the ability of the Commission to produce a fair and free presidential election. To this must be added the other ugly aspect of the printing of poor quality cards whose security is highly suspect. There is the mystery of the unidentified security people who broke into the data processing centre. Chairman Kasujja attaches no importance to this. On the vote tallying day (13/3/2001) agents of the Petitioner were not allowed at sensitive areas to verify how the tallying was being done. Yet Hon. Bakabulindi, who is no official of the commission and yet he was campaigner for the first Respondent was allowed a prominent seat at the reception of vital information relating to the tallying of votes without let or hindrance. This is evidence of blatant violation of the principle of transparency.

CHEATING

There is ample evidence showing wide spread interference by state officials and by polling officials, such as the returning officers and the presiding officers, whether in Kabale, Ntungamo, Rukungiri, Kanungu, Mbarara, Bushenyi, Kamwenge, Mayuge, Sembabule, Fort Portal, Kasese, Tororo, Bugiri, Busia, Mbale or Soroti. Thus the interference is sufficiently substantial because cheating was found to have been carried out in many parts of the country. There was the ballot stuffing. The pre-ticking of ballot papers and supervision of the ticking on the presiding officers’ table, sometimes in the absence of the agents of the Petitioner. Other times stuffing was done in the very presence of such helpless agents or helpless monitors. Thus Arinaitwe Hope, alias Tunamukye, a member of the Christian Monitoring Team, contended in para 6 of her affidavit that

“I noticed at the Polling Station where I was monitoring (Kasiiro) many grievous and deliberate cheating malpractices:-