The Electoral Commission (EC) on Wednesday, July 31, 2024, unveiled the roadmap to the 2025-2026 general elections. Yes, we are fast approaching another cycle of national elections, an all-important affair in the administration and governance of our country which exercise demands everyone’s attention.

Every five years, Uganda holds general elections at which a President, Members of Parliament (MPs), Local Council (LC) leaders from the district/city to the cell (village) level are elected. General elections are the height of democracy in practice. Every citizen is called upon to partcipate as the best opportunity to shape their country’s future.

According to the EC, there are about 3.3 million positions for the take at all levels. The Commission will start on the process to form new administrative units and undertake other preparatory processes including compiling an up-to-date voters register, which will be displayed between April 18 and May 8, 2025.

Next year (2025) will be momentous. It’s the year within which nomination of candidates at all levels will take place. Key dates include nominations for presidential candidates to end by October 3 and nomination of Parliamentary candidates to end by September 17. Ugandans will go to the polls between January 12 and February 9, 2026.

Everything about the 2026 general elections indicates that they will be bigger, in  more ways than one, that previous elections; there will be more voters (including diaspora and inmates), more elective offices, more administrative units, more polling stations and upgrade of systems and electoral infrastructure in the era of ICTs.

And if we expect more voters to be eligible to vote including from “constituencies” that have not previously been considered such as diasporians and prisoners, then we all have to prepare on time to prevent avoidable challenges that could make effects of Covid-19 look minor. The EC is to be commended for setting in motion activities to deliver a free and fair, and well organised election in line with its Constitutional mandate.

Since 2005-2006, Uganda runs a multiparty dispensation, meaning that the electoral cycle in process will be organised under the arrangement of parties taking center stage in competing, with independents on the side. Therefore, how prepared are the respective political parties to fit in the EC’s general roadmap?

Before the EC nominates candidates, political parties must have concluded their internal party primaries from which the Commission draws nominees to take up the respective party tickets or cards. Out of the registered or competing political parties, how many have set out their roadmaps and gone ahead to implement activities accordingly? Most, it not all, may have been caught offguard by the EC’s programme, and what we expect is a rushed programme as they attempt to fit in within the national electoral plan. It’s advisable to commence the election process much earlier for efficiency and to minimise challenges. Elections are a predictable exercise coming at a regular interval (of five years). It is an act of negligence and unseriousness on the side of party leaders whenever they fall back on preparedness yet there is the whole of five years to make necessary plans.

As a country, while celebrating the gift and opportunity of exercising our democratic rights, we always aim to organise each subsequent election better than the previous one. We must have cleaner voter registers, we must have transparent internal party primaries, we must have genuine candidates, we must have a more civically aware population, better harmonized electoral and campaign programmes, creating enough time for stakeholders to dialogue on areas of improvement.

How many political parties know their membership and have a proper member register/voter register? NRM compiled a register early this year and traditionally has a standing structure said to touch every inch of the country, while some parties are Kampala/social media based. NUP has done member mobilisation and appointed focal persons in some administrative units of the country. Are these internal elections or the process is still ahead? FDC has had a tough season, with a bitter internal split between the Najjanakumbi (the legal wing) and Katonga. The Katonga group led by Dr. Kizza Besigye announced a plan to form a new political party. Will they go that route against a time squeeze at hand or they will head back to Najjanankumbi and attempt to wrest power from the Nandala-Amuriat faction? Whichever way, isn’t it a tough call that spells disadvantage as the 2026 bells toll?

In 2021, NUP competed as a political party for the first time and managed to storm Parliament and some local councils, even edging out FDC from its dominant position in opposition. It’s one thing to win an election one time but it can’t be won by luck the second time. It takes a level of organization and foresight to maintain a lead or build on it. Therefore, 2026 will be a big test for NUP, not forgetting how the Kyagulanyi-Mpuuga rift is likely to play out if not addressed maturely. If they remain under one umbrella and the split camps compete internally, there would be sharper post-electoral differences that would require time to address and settle grievances. Are DP, UPC, ANT any better?

As the EC implements its Strategic Plan (2022/23 – 2026/27) for continuous improvement in the management of elections, it needs a strong and complementary partnership from the groups for whom the elections are organised and which benefit from them. Free, fair and credible elections which engender good governance and security for more stable and progressive nation require the involvement and contribution of the different stakeholders. Some of the complaints that come up after every election cycle are the making of different players other than the EC. If you do not unite and organise from within your own parties, how do you expect to convince the Ugandan population that you can unite, organise and secure them going forward?

Preparation and timeliness are equal to certain victory!

Faruk Kirunda is the Deputy Press Secretary to the President of Uganda

Contact: kirundaf2@gmail.com

0776980486/ 0783990861

The mailo system introduced by the 1900 Buganda Agreement was a disaster.

Land was grabbed from over ninety-nine percent of the population and awarded to less than one percent.

By stroke of a pen, bibanja holders became slaves in their own Country.  They were dispossessed and forced to provide free labour to the newly created mailo landlords who could evict them for any reason without recourse to any law.

Bibanja holders lived in a permanent state of trauma.

Rural unrest and discontent was inevitable and undermined the production of cash crops.

Leadership was found in bataka (clan heads) who had themselves been dispossessed of their butaka land.

A violent revolution appeared inevitable. The colonialists moved to stop this eventuality in the bud by enacting the 1927 Busulu and Envujo Law. This law assured bibanja holders security in the occupation of their plots and freed them from the fear of arbitrary eviction.

This security of tenure was however brought to an end by the 1975 Land Reform Decree. Bibanja holders were rendered tenants at sufferance. Their lot was back to the pre-1928 Busulu and Envujo Law.

The coming into power of the NRM sought to restore security of tenure to Bibanja holders through the 1995 Constitution and the Land Act Cap 227 as amended in 2004 and 2010.

The Constitution under Article 237 (8) granted security of occupancy to bibanja holders. His Excellency the President, exercising his powers under Article 99 (1) (2) and (3) of the Constitution has issued two directives operationalizing bibanja security of occupancy.

Article 237 (9) (b) of the constitution required that within two years after the first sitting of Parliament elected under the 1995 Constitution, that Parliament would enact a law……., “(b) Providing for the acquisition of registrable interest in the land by the occupant (bibanja holder)”.

The occupants being the ones idefined in Article 237 (8), i.e. the lawful of bone fide occupants of mailo land, freehold or leasehold. The law which Parliament was obliged to enact would have provided for mechanisms, procedures, processes and whereby a Kibanja holder would acquire a registrable freehold interest tenure on the land he occupied.

Unfortunately, the Land Law that was enacted i.e. the Land Act of 1998 was mainly directed towards enhancing bibanja’s security of occupancy.

The mailo landlord continues to hold the land in perpetuity and is still allowed to evict the kibanja holder under certain circumstances.

In view of the fact that the Land Act is not the one envisaged under Article 237 (9) (b) of the constitution and therefore did not provide for a registrable tenancy interest of a Kibanja occupant in perpetuity, the kibanja holder has to look elsewhere in the law to obtain security of tenure as opposed to security of occupancy.

Case law has provided that shelter in the doctrine of adverse possession. A person who get into possession of land without consent of the registered owner and the registered owner does not enforce his right of possession, for a period of twelve years, the law confers a title on the adverse possessor. The owner’s remedy and indefeasibility of title under Section 59 and 176(2) is thus extinguished and defeated under adverse possession.

A person who claims that he has acquired a title by adverse possession may apply under section 78 to 91 of the Registration of Titles Act, for an order vesting the land in him for an estate in fee simple i.e. mailo or freehold.

The limitation Act section 5 read together with section 16 means that an owner cannot bring an action to recover land after 12 years and therefore a person who has been possession of land for 12 years undisturbed by the landlord that person in possession becomes the owner, and is entitled to a title by possession. Decided cases of courts of judicature with binding force of law have confirmed this position.

Bonafide occupants, i.e. bibanja holders are adverse possessors who can apply to obtain title to the land they occupy under section 78 to 91 of the Registration of Titles Act. The provisions of Section 29 of the Land Act, defines a bonafide occupant as one who entered the land without the consent of the owner and was occupying that land for 12 years before the coming into force of the Constitution. This section when read together with Sections 5, 11, 16 and 29 of the Limitation Act, shows that whoever qualifies as a bonafide occupant, also qualifies as an adverse possessor. The tenure entitlement of the land owner of that area under possession of the kibanja holder is extinguished by the uninterrupted use of that land by the kibanja holder for 12 years.

While the nation awaits Parliaments enactment, the bibanja holders who have been in possession for more than 12 years uninterrupted by the registered proprietor can apply to the Registrar to have the land over the area they occupy vested in them as adverse possessor and own that land in perpetuity through freehold registrable interest.

Dr. Sam Mayanja

Minister of state for Lands

smayanja@kaa.co.ug

Scriptures say in Proverbs 28:1 in the Bible that, “the wicked flees when there is no one pursuing them,” this won’t be the case with the Uganda Media Council team that has already mooted a plan to hound the Observer newspaper journalists under disguise of caring to find answers to their alleged breach of journalistic ethics in reference to its regulatory duty, as it cannot go unchallenged.

In his letter to the Observer Newspaper Editor dated May 8, 2024 under which he summons them to appear before the Council’s disciplinary committee on Monday, 20th May 2024 under section 9 of Press and Journalist Act cap 105, over their May 8, 2024 news article of vol.19 issue 017, titled; ‘MPS Bribed to Save Government Agencies’ that is said to have derogated the sanctity and integrity of parliament, the Council’s chairperson Mr. Paul Ekochu also put the Newspaper administration on notice for failing to register the particulars of its Editor contrary to section 5 of the same Act, saying it is a criminal offense.

While the Council is charged with the duty of registering journalists and or enforcing penalties in the wake of any un compliance case, it cannot legally exercise the same in its current form, following the violation of requirements under the same legal instrument from onset by the ICT Ministry that performs the supervisory role over the Council and other bodies therein.

As part of its mandate, the ICT Ministry should be doing a lot in ensuring the better welfare standards of journalists by prevailing over the errant employers who time and again occasion exploitation, but sadly focuses a lot on accusing the practitioners of falling short of ethical standards whose viability spines around the welfare unanswered question, a corner stone to independent journalism.

Suffice to note is that, although the draconian Act was enacted in bad faith with an intention of annihilating the Uganda Journalists Association (UJA) that had already been around in the space since 1963 managing the journalistic landscape when it was put in place in 1995, this never succeeded as it was rejected by journalists given its anomalies, and it only now remains on books but can’t practically, legally, journalistically and logically be enforced.

And time has come for the officials in the ministry to accept the sectoral reality.

Media Council Wrong to Register Journalists.

As of now the Uganda Media Council cannot sanction the Observer Editor over failure to have registered their particulars or any other journalist, and if this happened, it is illegal according to the High Court’s ruling that was given in January 14, 2021 petition filed by Centre for Public Interest Law (CEPIL) and journalists under the Editors Guild against the Attorney General for Media Council.

Filing of this petition was prompted by December 20th 2020, then the Deputy Inspector General of Police Maj. Gen. Paul Lokech’s public statement that the Police would block journalists without the Media Council Press cards from covering the 2021 general elections, in reference to the flawed Media Council guidelines for the 2021 general elections.

Court declared that the registration of journalists by the Media Council of Uganda without an operational National Institute of Journalists of Uganda (NIJU) to enroll journalists in accordance with the Press and Journalist Act is illegal, irrational and procedurally irregular.

Like Media Council, NIJU, as a creator of the bad law (Press and Journalist Act of 1995), has been at its death point from onset.

The Councils’ purported guidelines had earlier been strongly protested by the UJA and other journalist organizations, noting that their intention was to curtail the enjoyment of press freedom ahead of the elections.

The trial judge Esther Nambayo stressed that without the functioning of the NIJU, the Media Council would be acting outside its mandate to register and issue practicing certificates to journalists in Uganda.

Court also issued an order of permanent injunction restraining the implementation of the illegal and irrational directives of the Media Council.

Now one wonders how the Observer newspaper will be subjected to penalties by the same Council in moribundity of the would-be journalists’ registration authority!

Would one therefore, be wrong if they describe as contempt of Court the Council’s decision with regard to the Observer journalists’ fate?

Would it be wrong for journalists to believe that the Council’s intervention during this time is an attempt to gag critical journalism that helps with pointing to the ills in the society that should instead be addressed by the relevant authorities?

“The Pen is Mightier Than the Gun”.

This article was written By Emmanuel Kirunda, Journalist and Secretary General, Uganda Journalists Association (UJA).