IPC wants Kayihura to explain Nakaseke fracas, say opposition defections to NRM stage-managed

Daily Monitor's Sheila Naturinda, Alfred Tumushabe & Rajab Mukombo, report in this Daily Monitor article about the partisanship the Ugandan as the presidential campaigns pick more fire. 

The Inter-Party Cooperation (IPC) yesterday demanded for an explanation from the police boss on circumstances relating to the closure of a radio station in Nakaseke. The IPC said the anti-riot police barricaded the radio premises, locked the doors and denied entry to Dr Kizza Besigye, the coalition’s presidential candidate.

“The IGP should now explain how his police barricaded the radio station to prevent entry,” said Maj. Rubaramira Ruranga, the coalition’s national electoral commission chairperson. However, the police yesterday told this newspaper that the IPC should make a formal complaint and stop blaming the force for the decisions taken by the radio management.

Police deny involvement
“Police was called in by the management,” police spokesperson, Judith Nabakooba, said. “Police wasn’t involved at all. Management decided to close their radio.” Addressing the media at the Forum for Democratic Change headquarters in Kampala, Maj. Ruranga said Dr Besigye was stopped from featuring on a talk show on Nakaseke FM, whose studios were closed.

“With radio presenters locked inside, the anti-riot police seemed to think Dr Besigye would force his way into the the studios,” Maj Ruranga said. “Our supporters just poured into the barricade and Dr Besigye addressed them from the veranda of the studio.”

Dr Besigye was denied the airwaves shortly after some gangs had torched cars belonging to FDC’s Moses Kabarema. The thugs burnt the vehicles hoping to stop the Besigye rally in an NRM stronghold, also finance minister Syda Bbumba’s constituency. “We shall go the furthest distance and also ask the EC and all others concerned to explain why they are treating us like this,” Maj Ruranga said. In November, six radio stations in western Ugandan denied Dr Besigye airtime and later told the EC that they did not have enough space to accommodate him.

Defections and denials
Maj Ruranga also welcomed into the IPC Mr Stuart Bukenya, an NRM national mobiliser, who crossed to the opposition camp, claiming the NRM is not relevant to Uganda anymore. Mr Bukenya handed over his party card, his mobiliser’s identity card and he was given a blue IPC campaign t-shirt. In Mbarara, FDC leaders moved to deny defections to the NRM, claiming those presented as defectors have never been committed party members.

Mr Museveni on Sunday received 185 people who defected from FDC in Kiruhura. The FDC District Woman MP candidate, Ms Dorcus Mpinga, pulled out of the race in favour of NRM’s Beatrice Rusaniaya. “We don’t know most of those who were presented. The NRM mobilisers wanted to please their leader,” said Mr Robert Tumwesigye, FDC party secretary for the district. He said Mr William Tumusiime (former district treasurer), Mr John Tugume (former secretary for mobilisation) and Mr Dennis Mugisha (former district vice chairman) were chased from leadership and replaced in April.

Holes in 2010 Afrobarometer election poll

A recent poll putting President Museveni far ahead of Dr. Kizza Besigye has generated controversy everywhere. In today's Daily Monitor, Timothy Kalyegira exposes the gaping holes in the said poll.

In 2006 a few weeks before that year’s general election, the Daily Monitor commissioned the public opinion survey firm AfroBarometer and their Kampala partner Wilsken Agencies, to conduct a poll on the popularity of the presidential candidates.

The results showed NRM candidate Yoweri Museveni in the lead. I sent an sms to the then Daily Monitor Executive Editor Peter Mwesigye warning that he should have taken better care in selecting which company to conduct a survey on behalf of the Daily Monitor.

I worked at Wilsken Agencies for a few months in late 1999 and over something as vital as a tense general election, I could not vouch for the integrity of the findings. The latest AfroBarometer opinion poll of the standings of the 2011 presidential candidates -- published across the front pages of Uganda’s two leading daily newspapers Daily Monitor and New Vision on Friday, December 17, 2010 to much public anger -- has not only vindicated the reservations I expressed to Peter Mwesige in 2006 but, I think, damaged the reputation of AfroBarometer beyond repair.

Early glitch
The poll was conducted between November 18 and December 6, 2010 in 71 of Uganda’s 112 districts and sampled 2,000 Ugandan adults. The result were that, as the New Vision put it in its lead story, “If Ugandans were to vote today” NRM candidate Yoweri Museveni would score 66 percent of the vote, FDC/IPC candidate Kiiza Besigye would get 12 percent, DP-1 candidate Norbert Mao 3 percent, UPC candidate Olara Otunnu 3 percent, Uganda Federal Alliance candidate Beti Kamya 1 percent and DP-2/independent candidate Samuel Lubega, PPP candidate Jaberi Bidandi-Ssali, and PDP candidate Abed Bwanika would all get 0 percent.

Let us start off with the most obvious and suspicious facts of this AfroBarometer poll. The first is that the numbers are all complete numbers --- 66, 12, 3, 3, 1, 0, 0, and 0. What sort of opinion poll would that be that would return perfect numbers without mathematical fractions? Notice that in Friday’s same edition, the New Vision stated that in its survey of June to July 2010, Museveni stood at 52.72 percent, Besigye at 16.06 percent, Olara Otunnu at 3.14 percent.

The truthfulness and impartiality of a survey by a newspaper such as the New Vision that has, since nomination day, insisted on publishing the campaign photos of only NRM candidate Yoweri Museveni, can be questioned. But it at least looks like a proper survey, with regular and fractional numbers.

The second and much more glaring flaw about the 2010 AfroBarometer opinion poll --- one that I am surprised has not been pointed out amid the public outcry on Friday and all weekend against the results -- was the total percentage number.

If the AfroBarometer poll is credible, how come it does not add up to 100 percent (if the Latin expression per cent means “out of a hundred”) in some cases? NRM is, for instance, said to command 72 per cent of the people’s love, FDC 28 per cent and UPC 15 per cent! That is more than 100 per cent. I suspect a deeper look at the finer details will reveal more of such inconsistencies.

This Afrobarometer poll reminded me of the heated 2002 phone exchange on Monitor FM (predecessor to KFM) between the then exiled FDC president Col. Kizza Besigye in South Africa and the then Chief of Military Intelligence, the late Brig. Noble Mayombo. Mayombo narrated to the listening audience specific days and times at which Besigye had allegedly made phone calls to the rebels of the LRA, ADF, and a new, mysterious rebel group called the PRA. Somehow, Mayombo’s intelligence report showed that all Besigye’s phone calls always fell at the top of the hour. It was “On July 12, at 3:00p.m., you called Vincent Otti. On October 7, at 11:00a.m., you called James Opoka.” The calls were never as irregular as 12:23p.m, 6:38a.m, 9:19p.m. They were all perfectly rounded numbers.

The immediate and obvious conclusion: the AfroBarometer opinion poll was in professional social sciences and even primary school mathematical terms, wrong.

This leads to the next question: what was the intention behind this poll that is calculated in percentages but is not quite 100 percent? Once again it is obvious: while the western donors who commissioned it had intended it to be an opinion poll in the professional, informative sense of the word, somebody might have got wind of it and possibly pressured or threatened AfroBarometer to falsify the results, which we now see do not even add up to 100 per cent.

Destroyed credibility
What this suspected fraud is going to do, apart from forever destroying AfroBarometer’ credibility in Uganda and future business prospects, it will if anything harden public anger and determination against any rigging during the February 18, 2011 general election.

It will make the donors and news media not only less gullible about whom they commission to conduct opinion polls, but also bring greater alertness to the reality of rigging and manipulation of final results at the Election Commission computer and tallying rooms in Kampala.

It will be a most interesting irony that what started out as a poll intended to create the impression of an inevitable Museveni victory and have a demoralising effect on the millions of opposition voters will turn out to be the very catalyst not only to greater watchfulness during the voting and counting. It could be one of many sparks for violence that might erupt should such obvious efforts at fraud happen on and after February 18.

Besigye: Two flag bearers to defect to NRM

Observer's Edris Kiggundu reports about Dr. Kizza Besigye's prediction of some opposition candidates that might cross to the ruling NRM. 

The Inter-Party Cooperation candidate, Dr Kizza Besigye, has said in a critical indictment of opposition candidates that some presidential flag bearers may defect to the ruling NRM sometime before or after the February general elections.

Besigye used Aggrey Awori, a former UPC stalwart and presidential candidate who is now ICT minister in the NRM government, to demonstrate that he (Besigye) has been more consistent in his opposition to NRM than any other politician.

He said that in 2001 when Awori first stood for the presidency, he went round the country saying that Besigye and Museveni were one and the same.

“Now he [Awori] is in the same bed with Museveni,” Besigye noted. Then he asked, “Do you know who Awori’s campaign manager was?” It was Norbert Mao, who is now DP’s presidential candidate.
In an exclusive interview with The Observer on Tuesday, Besigye offered to substantiate more on his remarks.

“I know there are at least two presidential candidates in the opposition that are likely to be fifth columnists of the NRM,” Besigye stated.

Asked to name the two candidates that he thinks might be working for and may soon defect to the NRM, he said: “I don’t want to go into names but the ordinary people are not stupid; they know who the genuine opposition candidate is.”

The Observer has however learnt that the colonel is implicitly referring to Mao and the Uganda Federal Alliance flag bearer, Beti Kamya.

Mao led DP in resisting the now Besigye-led IPC alliance and has since then had a fractured relationship with the most prominent opposition leader, Besigye.

On her part, Kamya once belonged to Besigye’s FDC but quit after the party denied her the post of national chairman following the death of Sulaiman Kiggundu. She told The Observer in an interview recently that Besigye would be worse than Museveni as president. Kamya added that she’s not keen on joining anyone’s government.

“The only thing that I can discuss with Museveni or with anybody [who wins] is moving the federalism agenda forward. But I despise power sharing for the sake of it,” she said.

Mao has been a strong critic of President Museveni’s 24-year rule, but he is not perceived negatively, as much as Besigye for instance, in the NRM.

When he visited the New Vision offices at the weekend, he said Museveni is leading the presidential race, followed by himself. This seemed to imply that candidate Mao believes Museveni will win the election.
The highlight of this year’s presidential campaign so far has been defections of major political figures to the ruling NRM.

Kampala Mayor Nasser Ntege Sebaggala led the pack, followed by former UPC national chairman Badru Wegulo, Henry Peter Mayega and Osinde Wangor.

Opposition protest LC1 bicycle deal

Daily Monitor's Emanuel Mulondo today reports about one of the tricks government is using to bribe voters, and how the opposition is saying no.

A Shs8 billion government project to provide each of the 70,000 LC1 chairpersons with a bicycle is a scheme to bribe voters, the opposition have said.

The government will beginning January 9, 2011, give out the bicycles and the exercise will end on January 30.

Opposition politicians say the scheme, which begins ahead of elections in February next year, is a plan by the government to grease voters’ hands.

Mr Wafula Ogutu, the FDC spokesperson, argued that LC1 chairpersons are existing illegally.

“As far as we are concerned, there are no LCs. We went to court and court ruled that those LCs are existing illegally and ordered elections of new ones elected under multiparty system, which government has not done. They can’t use our (public) money to pay people existing illegally,” Mr Ogutu said.

Mr John Kashaka, the permanent secretary ministry of Local government, on Friday signed the supply agreement for the bicycles.

Local government minister Pereza Ahabwe, who witnessed the contract signing, said the scheme was not targeted at manipulating the leaders ahead of the elections, adding that the bicycles are meant to “equip the local leaders in monitoring government projects and serving their people.

Last year, we provided all LC3 chairpersons with motorcycles. The money was not enough to facilitate all the local leaders at once. So we are doing it progressively and in phases. Where there elections when we gave out motorcycles to LC3 chairpersons?” Mr Kashaka asked.

But Robert Kanusu, the UPC party spokesman, said: “This is the highest level of election malpractice. And that the Badru Kiggundu-led commission is quiet about it shows how ineffective it is.”

Mr Kanusu and Mr Ogutu said they would petition court.

The Justice Forum Party president, Mr Asumani Basalirwa, said the scheme was an abuse of state resources and was not in good faith.

“They are using this to boost the candidature of President Museveni. NRM is desperate. It could also be a trick to facilitate their NRM campaigns,” he said.