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"id": 290436,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Mungatana",
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"speaker": {
"id": 185,
"legal_name": "Danson Buya Mungatana",
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"content": "Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I needed to make a small contribution in the Second Reading of this Statute Law (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill, specifically on the Elections Act. There is a grave or rather important proposal that passed, and we have discussed this matter with the Attorney-General, that concerns presidential and deputy presidential candidates. In the original Elections Act, I had proposed at the Committee Stage that the presidential candidate may as well vie for an extra seat, if they so wished. That proposal was rejected by the House, so that the presidential and deputy presidential candidates or their running mates were restricted. They could not be allowed to run, for example, a seat in the House and a seat in State House. So, we settled that one. Then I proposed another amendment which was accepted by all of us unanimously at the Committee Stage. I proposed that for the sake of maintaining capacity within the political leadership, those who will have tried to run for elective positions in high places like the presidency and their running mates, if they should not be successful, their parties should nominate them in their party list. There was a section in the Act that seemed to say that they may not include the deputy president and the president in the party list. The House carried that proposal. We approved the proposal. However, when the gazetted Act came out, it did not carry that proposal. Consequently, I raised this issue on the Floor of the House and the substantive Speaker then directed the Attorney-General to issue a corrigenda. There is confusion because we hear from the Clerk’s office that, that corrigendum was issued and on the other side, the Attorney-General does not seem to be aware of this. We discussed this matter and we are in consonance that it would be a good opportunity now that the Elections Bill is on the Floor to lay the basis for us to make the corrections, so that it is clear from all sides that when a presidential candidate and their running mates participate or offer themselves for an election and they are not successful, they may be nominated by their respective political parties on their party list, so that we can have more candidates participating in this high office. I have argued before and I will repeat this argument in this Second Reading that it is important, just like in the corporate world and the Civil Service, that there should be a containment of talent. In the corporate world, people start from being assistant managers to full time managers. They grow and become chief executive officers and they change from one company to another. In the Civil Service, people start as Under-secretaries, they become Directors, Deputy Secretaries and then Permanent Secretaries. They are contained within their system. In politics, when people aspire to high offices, we should not do it like they do in Uganda where if one is running for presidency, he is not only excluded from being nominated, but is also not allowed to run for any other seat. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, what happens is that a presidential candidate who is leading a party that has something like 50 or 60 Members in Parliament is not within the House to raise issues. He then resorts to protests in the streets where he is hammered by police instead of engaging the Government in the House under proper decorum and in a dignified manner. With the passing of the Constitution, it is very clear to me that you could have a President sitting in the State House but, in fact, he does not have a majority in the House. You could have his worthy opponent who may have lost the presidential election but then, he has a majority in the House, or a conglomeration of political parties that make a majority in the House. In each case then, we will have a cohabitation of sorts. The majority leader in the House will be a person who does not necessarily belong to the president’s political party. Then we have proper accountability within the House system. This is, indeed, what the American system has been like. You could have a democrat sitting in the White House but, in the Senate and Congress, the Majority Leader is a Republican. There is always some form of proper accountability. Of course, every president would like a situation where the House Majority Leader and the Senate Majority Leader also come from his or her party."
}