The United States of America (US) has cancelled plans to observe Presidential polls in Uganda due on Thursday, January 14, 2021, citing denial of election accreditations to its observers. It announced the decision through a statement issued on Wednesday, January 13, 2021, by US Ambassador to Uganda, Natalie E. Brown on cancellation of US Diplomatic Observer Mission of Uganda’s Elections. The US decision is made a day before Ugandans vote in a general Presidential election after a campaign characterised by violence that has resulted in deaths of dozens of people. Candidates to the Ugandan presidency include the incumbent President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, 76, who is seeking his sixth term in office after 35 years in power. Museveni faces 10 contenders, most notably the 38-year-old Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu known by his stage name Bobi Wine — a Ugandan pop star-turned-opposition presidential candidate. It is with profound disappointment that I announce U.S. Mission in Uganda’s decision to cancel our diplomatic observation of Uganda’s January 14 elections due to the decision by the Electoral Commission of Uganda to deny more than 75 per cent of the U.S. election observer accreditations requested, Brown said in the statement. With only 15 accreditations approved, it is not possible for the United States to meaningfully observe the conduct of Uganda’s elections at polling sites across the country, she observed. Despite multiple requests, Brown said, the Electoral Commission [of Uganda] provided no explanation for its decision, which it communicated days before the elections. She said that the purpose of a diplomatic observation of elections is to demonstrate the USs interest in a free, fair, peaceful, and inclusive electoral process, indicating that diplomatic observers are not participants or advisors in the electoral process. Rather, she explained, they informally observe the conduct of elections, following strict standards of impartiality, non-interference, and compliance with local laws. Meanwhile, she said that the Government of Uganda has supported such US observer efforts in multiple previous Ugandan elections. For Uganda’s 2016 elections, she said, the US Mission dispatched 88 diplomatic election observers. For the January 14 [2021] election, the US Mission complied with all Electoral Commission accreditation requirements, as we had in previous elections in Uganda, but the vast majority of our requests for 2021 were not approved. This, she said, makes the decision now to deny accreditation to all but a small, randomly selected handful of our observers all the more troubling. Furthermore, she said, numerous civil society organizations planned to observe the elections, but many have not heard back from the Electoral Commission on their accreditation applications. Absent the robust participation of observers, particularly Ugandan observers who are answerable to their fellow citizens, Uganda’s elections will lack the accountability, transparency and confidence that observer missions provide, she said. Concerns as Ugandan CSOs are denied access to their bank accounts On January 9, 2021, Ambassador Brown issued a statement saying that the US government remained concerned over disturbing signs that civic space was closing. She said that the US remained concerned over how Ugandan institutions continued to block the bank accounts of several reputable and well-known civil society organisations (CSOs), on questionable bases, preventing their important work on voter education, domestic election observation, public dialogues, and tracking and preventing election-related violence. These, she said, are globally accepted non-partisan elections activities funded by the US, the European Union, and other international partners who are merely supporting the Ugandan people in living up to their own constitutionally mandated election standards, she pointed out. The continued blocking of these accounts has significantly limited the ability of these CSOs to contribute to the conduct of free, fair, and peaceful elections in Uganda, a goal that the United States shares with the Ugandan people, she said.
