The Rwenzururu Movement in Uganda: Struggling for Recognition by Martin Doornbos

Author:Martin Doornbos [Doornbos, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138039025
Google: TrjHswEACAAJ
Goodreads: 36797591
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-10-19T00:00:00+00:00

Dear Sir, we beg you to consider these practices. If possible this election should be carried out once more.83

Problems in the election of representatives to county councils also arose because of simple administrative mistakes. Thus residents of Kilembe complained that insufficient time was given them to ‘come down the hills for elections’; that the first meeting was also the election, but many had not understood that from the circular sent out by the government, since the translation was bad; and that the Assistant District Commissioner had refused to answer questions before the election.84 A similar complaint came from Balyongwa in Bwamba, (Uganda Argus, 11 January 1966) and from residents of Katwe.85 One Mutoro chief also protested that the central government agent in Kisinga and Omunkunyu, Bukonjo county, had substituted names of his personal friends for the original nominees on the ballot.86

The fact that there was considerable economic incentive to become a county councillor undoubtedly promoted many of these irregularities in preliminary balloting. Each councillor was to receive a basic fee per month, plus an attendance allowance of five pounds per day during council sessions.87 Nevertheless, fraud at the polls was probably not as successful as it might have been, since the procedures employed for choosing county councillors provided for a review of popularly elected candidates by a three-man commission which was to include the Minister of Regional Administrations, the Omuhikirwa of Toro (Samson Rusoke), and the District Commissioner. The number of votes polled by each candidate was to be taken into account by the Commission, but other undefined considerations could equally influence its final choice of councillors and that choice could not be appealed. Given the predominance of central government officials on the electoral committee, it seems highly likely that their judgement concerning the chance of a given candidate supporting the government’s programme would play a far more decisive role in their deliberations than any other factors, including irregularities at the polls.

It is very difficult to generalize concerning the past histories and loyalties of the fifty-nine men who were eventually chosen to sit in the county councils of Bwamba, Busongora and Bukonjo. For most of them, no biographical information is available. Nevertheless, it should be noted that Mupalya, Mbirika, Kiiti and Ruchulera (all of whom had abandoned Kawamara’s militant position) were appointed, as were at least two prominent members of the Bataka who had pledged cooperation with the Minister of Regional Affairs (Dominiko Kiswairi and Modesto Masereka). Other well-known local leaders named to county councils included Daudi Muhindo, Bulasio Maate and Yostasi Kule. Their positions in the rapidly shifting alliances of 1965 are not clear.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.