Kizza Besigye intends to pre-emptively declare Friday's election as a challenge to what he says will be fake results, writes JODY CLARKEin Kampala
UGANDA’S MAIN opposition candidate has insisted he will pre-emptively declare the result of next Friday’s presidential election, after the country’s election commission warned any such announcement would be unacceptable.
“We don’t care what they say,” Dr Kizza Besigye, head of the Movement for Democratic Change, said in an interview. “They have been publishing fake results for years and stealing the election as a result.”
He plans on sending out one million election agents to tally results and release them on Saturday, 24 hours before the Ugandan Election Commission is legally obliged to do so.
Yesterday, the commission’s head cautioned anyone from taking such actions. “Any attempt by individuals and organisations to assume such powers shall be a violation of the constitution, which is unacceptable,” the organisation’s head, Badru Kiggundu, told journalists in Kampala. However Besigye, who has made reference to “Egypt” at several of his rallies, claimed there is nothing stopping him from declaring the results. He said the electoral commission, whose seven members are nominated by the president, is clearly biased as six of the members have not changed since the disputed 2006 election.
“We have no choice but to declare our own results. People are clearly frustrated. And wherever people are frustrated, what has happened in Egypt and across northern Africa is the likely outcome.”
Eight candidates are contesting Friday’s poll, with the incumbent, President Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power for 25 years, widely expected to be re-elected.
Many credit the former rebel leader with bringing peace to Uganda after decades of civil war and violence in the north, where a protracted war with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) led to the deaths of 10,000 Ugandans and the abduction of 60,000 children.
“We will vote for Museveni,” said Adiyo Helen, her year-old son, Deogracious, negotiating his thumb and mother’s breast in his mouth, near Gulu in northern Uganda, which saw some of the worst of the LRA’s violence.
“I spent 14 years in a camp because of the violence but know that he struggled to bring peace.” However, Friday’s vote has already been marred by allegations that the president’s ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) has fixed constituency sizes to favour its candidates and has been handing out cash looted from the treasury to buy votes.
“The scale of money being spent on this election is phenomenal,” said one diplomatic source in Kampala. “It’s hard to believe that a reasonable amount of funds released by the treasury hasn’t been channelled to the NRM.”
Parliament’s public accounts committee recently declared that the government was broke, forcing the Ugandan parliament to approve a supplementary budget of $260 million after most of this year’s budget was spent half way through the financial year to June, following additional budget allocations to State House (the president’s office) and the electoral commission.
“Who knows where that $260 million will come from,” says a ministry of finance economist. “A lot of money tends to be spent in election years but this year it is particularly bad. We’re just six months into the financial year and 85 per cent has already been spent, most of it by State House. The government is broke.”
Election observers have already witnessed parliamentary candidates giving 150,000 shillings to entire villages, buying ambulances and even mattresses for communities.
This reporter spoke to several people in Gulu who said they witnessed NRM officials handing out 5,000 shillings (€1.50) on the campaign trail. “It happened when Norbert Mao came to town,” one man said. “They gave out 5,000 shillings to people and told them not to go.”
The names of people on the voter list is also a bone of contention, as are 25 specially elected candidates to parliament nominated by the president. These include five seats reserved for youth and 10 for the army.
“The president continues to use political state resources, which is clearly against the best international practice,” says the diplomatic source. “The election race is already skewed.”