Kampala — THE army and the Police should not be involved in elections, Justice George Kanyeihamba has said.
"The army and the Police should not participate actively in elections.
Why do we parade them in public? If we deploy them at all, let's do it discretely. We should not give the impression that we are deploying them in favour of one person," the Supreme Court judge said on Friday.
He said elections should be held in a free and fair atmosphere.
"They should be like a wedding ceremony where people dance.
How many of you saw the Police and the army being paraded on the streets during the recent US elections?" he asked.
He was speaking at a workshop on strengthening multi-party democracy and electoral reforms at the Commonwealth Resort Munyonyo in Kampala.
Kanyeihamba said teachers and other persons of good moral standing should be involved in manning elections.
"Once you put the Police at the polling station, people become fearful," he said.
Kanyeihamba said the public should be sensitised to understand that all presidential candidates are equal.
He also said the incumbent should not be allowed to use state resources during elections.
Kanyeihamba appealed to public and political officials not to "personalise government".
He said it was unfortunate that the electoral commission conducts elections without consulting citizens.
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Good thinking. The only reason the army and police are deployed at the polling stations is to intimidate voters into voting the incubent: who is always a despot. I have already argued that corrupt politicians are abusing the police and army institutions to obtain and retain power permanently. The only way out of the grid-locked dysfunction between the army and police (the two are now hardly different since the army generals run the police too as they run the army), and politics (the presidency), is for the army and police to leave politics, e.g., the parliament and go back to the barracks. Uganda's problem is that the president is micromanaging all institutions: the judiciary, the parliament, the army, the police, the list goes on and on.