BRIEFING NOTES TO THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS BY HON. SAM K. KUTESA, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS: 1 APRIL, 2016 ------
Your Excellencies,
Introduction
1. Good morning and thank you all for coming to this interaction at short notice.
2. As you are all aware, Uganda has concluded the electoral process across the country, which started on 18 February with Presidential and Parliamentary elections. These were subsequently followed by Distinct, Municipal and Local Council elections, as well as parliamentary representatives for special interest groups, such as the UPDF, Youth, Workers, and Persons with Disabilities.
3. Arising from the elections, H.E President Yoweri Museveni was declared winner of the Presidential elections, with 60.62% of the vote, followed by FDC’s Dr. Kizza Besigye with 35.61%. Detailed results, including those for Parliamentary, District and Local Council elections have been published by the Electoral Commission.
4. While I would have wished to address you earlier, there was an on-going Supreme Court Petition challenging the outcome of the elections, upon which almost all concerns relate. With the Supreme Court Judgement yesterday, I thought I should meet you today with a view to clarifying and sharing views on some of these issues. We welcome the ruling of the Supreme Court which upheld the election of H.E Yoweri Kaguta Museveni as President of Uganda.
Conduct of elections
5. The late delivery of polling materials in Kampala and Wakiso Districts was regrettable, and the Electoral Commission took full responsibility for it. Indeed, it took remedial measures, including; extending voting time from the statutory 4:00pm to 7:00pm. In other cases, elections were postponed to the next day (19th February, 2016) to allow people who had not voted to vote. I wish to point out that, except for scattered instances of violence, elections were by and large conducted peacefully across the country. 1 | P a g e 6. We thank you and your Governments for the continuing interest in Uganda’s democratic process. We are also grateful to the many Observer Groups that monitored the elections, such as the EU, AU, COMESA, EICA and EAC. As a young democracy, there are always improvements to be made, and we welcome the observations and recommendations that have been made. Many of them, while pointing out some challenges, commended the Electoral Commission’s innovations, including the use of the biometric verification system and voter location slips, as important steps to enhance transparency. During the 10th Parliament, Government will take on board constructive recommendations by all the Observer Groups and the Supreme Court, in its consideration of electoral reforms.
Press and Media Freedoms
7. Regarding the media, you may have observed that Uganda’s media environment is extremely free, pluralistic and mainly driven by the private sector. There are over 24 daily and weekly newspapers, 26 free to air and 5 pay TV stations, as well as 220 licensed and operational radio stations countrywide. The Government does not exercise editorial or content supervision nor censorship and more so, at no time during the recently concluded elections.
8. The Police has had close cooperation and constructively engaged the Media, before, during and after the elections. It is however, always a challenge when the thrill of a story is more important to a journalist than basic security guidelines or regulations, and in this case certain restrictions have been made.
9. Generally, the issue of rights and responsibilities is addressed by the Constitution. Article 29(1) (a) provides that: “Every person shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression which shall include freedom of the press and media.” However this enjoyment is subject to the general limitation under Article 43(1), which prescribes that: “In the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms prescribed in this Chapter, no person shall prejudice the fundamental or other human rights and freedoms of others or the public interest”.
10. These rights and responsibilities also apply to social media. On 18 – 20 February, there was restriction on social media based on reliable information to use it to destabilize the electoral process, and potentially the security of the country. By law, only the Electoral Commission conducts and declares election results. Using
2 | P a g e social media to declare unofficial results is contrary to the law. This would have been a recipe for confusion in a young democracy.
Conclusion
11. Excellencies, the Government has listened to and pays attention to the concerns some of your Governments and members of the international community have raised. We have also duly taken note of the various observations and recommendations by the Elections Observer Groups. We shall constructively work with you all to appropriately address those that move Uganda forward. As a country that subscribes to democratic principles and values, including through the African Peer Review Mechanism, we remain firmly focused on protecting and promoting people’s rights and freedoms, as well as rule of law.
12. With the Supreme Court ruling yesterday, many of the election-related issued were addressed. It is time to put our hands together and embark on implementing programmes for the country’s development. Over the next five years, we have set out an ambitious development programme, contained in the Second National Development Plan (NDP II) as part of Vision 2040, for Uganda’s socio-economic transformation. At the international level, implementation of the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has started in earnest.
13. We value and attach great importance to the contribution of each of your Governments to Uganda’s development. We have collaborated and worked together on many socio-economic development projects and programmes in the past, and we need to continue in this spirit. We observed, and rightly so, that the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals will require a strengthened global partnership. Lets us strengthen our collaboration and cooperation further to promote the development and prosperity of all Ugandans. Part of this effort should be the continuous deepening of regional cooperation and integration; as well strengthening South-South and Triangular Cooperation.
I thank you for your kind attention.
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