Civic education will end election malpractice, says Babu

Veteran politician, captain Francis Babu has underscored the need for early civic education if the government is to do away with election malpractices witnessed across elections.

According to Captain Babu, majority of Ugandans lack clear understanding of what democracy is and the importance of elections explaining why electorates are easily lured into election violence.

Reports of election malpractices have become common every after election be it at national level, local government or mere by-elections.

Both the opposition and the government point fingers at each other accusing each other of vote rigging, monetisation of politics, intimidation, deceit, ferrying voters among others.

Captain Babu says election violence happens because there's lack of sensitization of Ugandans, with Electoral commission only carrying out voter education only when it's election period.

But these violations, Babu says can never be a basis to determine whether an election has been successfully or not as only a few poling stations have reported cases of violence during elections

"You must look at it from the national level at how many constituencies had violations," said Captain Babu.

"If the reporter violence about 10% then you can't say the election was violent."

On the contrary, DP Secretary General Gerald Siranda says all the violations have been as a result of failure to implement electoral laws promptly.

He is now advocating for electoral reforms which he says can easily avert all manner of violations.

Parties have already embarked on preparedness ahead of the 2026, these have their internal lessons that they are also meant to address to avoid repeating what has haunted them in the past.