Members of the parliamentary Standing Committee on Social Affairs yesterday started examining the draft organic law governing elections, a bill that seeks to align the electoral code with the new Constitution.

Local Government minister Francis Kaboneka and the National Electoral Commission (NEC)’s Executive Secretary Charles Munyaneza yesterday appeared before the committee to provide clarifications on the bill.

Munyaneza said that the objective is mainly to make the electoral law user-friendly and to include penalties related to electoral crimes in this legislation instead of keeping them in the penal code.

"Instead of having penalties for crimes related to elections put in a penal code, they will be put in the electoral law as required by the revised Constitution,” he said.

In the proposed organic law governing elections, the structure of the existing law will be improved with a logical arrangement of provisions so that the public can better understand how election related activities are conducted step by step, from the beginning to the end of elections.

Ideas contained in different articles have also been grouped into one article to make them clearer while articles with close connection will be logically arranged.

But as legislators examined the bill yesterday, Article 8, on persons prohibited from registering on the voter’s register, was returned to the Ministry of Local Government so it can be re-assessed because it would prohibit many people from voting if passed.

Under the article, people who are prohibited from voting include those whose right to vote has been scrapped by courts, those who were convicted of manslaughter or murder, prisoners, and those who were convicted of the crime of genocide or crimes against humanity, among others.

Those who were convicted of defilement as well as rape are prohibited from voting under the draft law.

The problem with the way the article is written is that many Genocide convicts who are currently allowed to vote would be denied that right if it is not changed.

The current electoral law prohibits those who masterminded Genocide from voting but it allows over a million Genocide convicts to vote in case they were not in positions of power or leadership when they participated in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

"The way it is written right now means that a considerable number of people would be taken off the electoral list. That’s why we need to revisit this article and ensure that it is well written,” Munyaneza said in an interview on Article 8 of the draft electoral law.

He said that officials at the Ministry of Local Government and NEC will further consult lawyers and brainstorm further with lawmakers on how best to phrase the article.

The next major poll in the country is the parliamentary election slated early September, 2018.

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