Seats should not be accepted

The National Letters

ELECTORAL Commissioner Simon Sinai gave the following reasons for the short-sighted decision to accept the writs of Markham and Kabwum Open seats:

  • Consultation with his lawyers, management team, provincial, and district returning officers;
  • Destruction of ballot papers were pre-planned by candidates and their supporters to sabotage the electoral process;
  • To conduct a supplementary or by-election would be to surrender the powers and authority of the EC to criminal elements; and,
  • That the incidents were the first of its kind and the decision made must serve as a deterrent for the future.

As an observer and voter on the ground in Kabwum station during the elections through to the destruction of ballot papers, I would say the above four reasons for deciding the election outcome for Kabwum are outrageous.
The two electorates cannot have the same decision made for them, because despite the end result of burnt ballots they are two very different cases happening at two different locations by different people with varied motives.
For instance, back in Kabwum where people had a lot of respect for the rule of law, not a single ballot paper would have been destroyed if only there was a formidable presence of law enforcers.
The election management team, in its wisdom, decided to send a bunch of reservists to Kabwum completely unarmed.
It was obvious from the beginning that these ill-trained unarmed reservists did not stand a chance if things were to go wrong.
So the election management team cannot shy away from being responsible for this mishap and concur to give away cheaply the mandate of the people of Kabwum.
And to teach a small party of criminal elements and maybe a candidate or two by denying the whole Kabwum populace the right to democratically elect their leader is outright undemocratic.
And finally, this decision will not serve as a deterrent for the future, instead putting it in Sinai’s own words, “destruction of ballot papers will be pre-planned by the leading candidates and their supporters to sabotage the electoral process” to get a similar decision as the precedent is set.
This decision will only make the next election messier, and a new method of cheating was just invented.
Be mindful that in Kabwum only eight ballot boxes were counted with 18 yet to be counted and the count was only in its first preferential stage when the chaos erupted.
There is no way in the world anyone can be declared in such a case.
Let there by a supplementary or by-election for Kabwum.
The silent majority deserve to have a choice in who represents them in the next five years.

James Zoriong
Gatop Mission Station
Kabwum/Wasu