Besigye asks opposition to unite and take power

They say unity can break the hardest bone; Dr. Kizza Besigye has said the unity of the opposition is what will dislodge the ruling NRM, reports Daily Monitor's Steven Komakech & Steven Ariong
 
Kitgum/Kaabong

The Inter- Party Cooperation presidential candidate, Dr Kizza Besigye, has called for unity among the political opposition parties if they want to dislodge the ruling NRM from power.

While addressing a rally at Boma Ground in Kitgum at the weekend, Dr Besigye said unity will enable them to speak with one voice in quest for votes to bring change.

Dr Besigye urged voters to be the rightful engine to drive for change through a vibrant leader like him. “Be wise to elect a leader who will bring the desired change,” he said. If elected to office, Dr Besigye said, his priority would be to reconstruct the north which has lagged behind in development.

The Uganda Peoples Congress Party presidential candidate, Mr Olara Otunnu, withdrew from the IPC citing failure by the Forum for Democratic Change party to follow principles. Mr Norbert Mao’s Democratic Party also did not buy into the idea of a political coalition.

Mr Otunnu said the FDC and other opposition political parties like the Conservative Party and the Social Democratic Party, had not kept the promise to dislodge the Electoral Commission headed by Dr Badru Kiggundu.

On his visit to St. Joseph Hospital Kitgum, Dr Besigye handed over food items like sugar, bread and soap worth about Shs600,000 to patients.

While witnessing the handover, Kitgum Hospital Medical Superintendent Alex Layoo thanked Besigye for his generosity. “This donation does not mean we are partisan, we welcome anybody who wants to help our community,” Dr Layoo said.

While addressing a rally in Kaabong last Friday, the IPC presidential flag bear said if he wins the election, he would get another team to help the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee to re-audit Chogm and Global Fund money which he says has been mismanaged by President Museveni’s friends.

Used elsewhere
He said this money would have helped the country fund priority areas like health, education, transport and agriculture.

“This is a clear sign of segregation, you don’t arrest people because they are your in-laws, friends and yet they have committed crimes but you only order arrests of those who commit crimes and not related to you,” he said.

Dr Besigye, who is contesting for the highest office in the land for the third time, will be in Gulu District on Thursday.

Polls: Besigye hits back at Museveni

Between the two strong bulls in the prevailing presidential campaigns, neither is intimidated by the other, reports Daily Monitor's Steven Ariong & Mercy Nalugo

The Inter-Party Cooperation presidential flag bearer, Dr Kizza Besigye, yesterday said he will not be intimidated by President Museveni.

Dr Besigye’s rebuttal follows the President’s warning on Tuesday that Dr Besigye, a retired army Colonel, would be jailed if he dared announce his own version of the 2011 election results.

“Whether President Museveni wants or not, I will make sure we announce our own result before the Electoral Commission announces its final results,” he said, “I will not tolerate this business of intimidating me.”

Dr Besigye, who was Mr Museveni’s former personal physician during the 1981-6 NRA bush war, re-affirmed his stand on declaring election results during a rally at Morulem Trading Centre in the new Abim District, Karamoja region.

He said his campaign is more organised and prepared this time, unlike in 2005/6 when he had to juggle between courts and campaigns, and “we are determined to ensure our vote is not stolen again”. At another rally in Abim Town Council, Dr Besigye said: ”Museveni has been good at stealing my votes”.

“In 2006, he stole my votes when I was in Luzira Prison but this time I will not allow that. I am much more prepared to fight malpractices than in 2006.”

In 2006, Dr Besigye was detained and charged with treason and rape upon returning to the country from exile in October 2005. He only joined the presidential race after being nominated in jail.

The High Court would later throw out the rape charge which it denounced as a scurrilous attempt to slur the reputation of an honourable man who had chosen to run for the highest office in the land.

Five years later, the Constitutional Court also ruled in the colonel’s favour on the treason allegations, which he had always insisted were politically-motivated.

President Museveni told a news conference in Jinja on Tuesday that if Dr Besigye announced his own results, he would be arrested. The contention about the results appears to have shaken the campaigns with Dr Besigye, who is running against President Museveni for the third consecutive time, maintaining that he will not be cheated again.

The opposition has accused the current Electoral Commission of being partisan, saying they cannot deliver free and fair elections. The Supreme Court also found in its ruling on Dr Besigye’s 2006 petition against Mr Museveni’s re-election that the EC incompetently presided over that poll.

Yesterday, the Forum for Democratic Change, which Dr Besigye leads, remained defiant. They told journalists in Kampala that Mr Museveni is free to petition the EC.

Be educated
Campaign spokesperson Margaret Wokuri said: “I need to be educated under what law a candidate can really arrest another. But if President Museveni is aggrieved by our plan, let him petition the electoral body.”

She said the results shall be relayed as they come in. FDC vice president (eastern region), Ms Salaamu Musumba, told Daily Monitor that the President is being irrational.

“What is the substance and content of his anger? His anger is fear but for us we have committed ourselves to democracy and constitutional rule even under the (current)apartheid-like rule. The law is very clear because we have to have two polling agents at each station to deliver the results to us which we are to tally and announce,” she said.

Ms Musumba added that they have set up one with a back-up in Kenya and the UK and have acquired software which will automate the tallying.

Besigye to organise three-week prayer session

God knows Uganda needs prayers! In this Daily Monitor article, Steven Ariong reports that Dr. Kizza Besigye will petition God to rescue our country...

The Inter-Party Cooperation presidential candidate, Dr Kizza Besigye, has said he will organise a three-week prayer session countrywide to ask God to save the country from the NRM’s alleged mismanagement.

Addressing a rally in Kaabong on Friday, Dr Besigye said God is unhappy with the way Ugandans are allegedly suffering under President Museveni’s government, which he claimed caters only for a few individuals while the rest of population are living in abject poverty.

Dr Besigye told Kaabong residents to accept bribes presented by NRM supporters but not to vote NRM candidates.

“When they bring the money to you, please eat that money and clean your lips and ask for more because that is your tax money that goes to Kampala and never comes back to help you but don’t vote for them. If you vote for them, you will pay that money 10 times,” he said.

“Museveni’s time has come for him to go back to his Ruwakitura village,” he said

The media has a duty to accord all candidates same exposure

In this convincing commentary published in today's Daily Monitor, Mr. Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba, argues that in the spirit of democracy and fairness, all candidates should be accorded equal airtime on radio and other reportage

I was appalled by recent reports in the media that nine radio stations had refused to run Inter-Party Cooperation (IPC) presidential candidate Kizza Besigye’s campaign adverts because the stations are owned by NRM “big boys’’.

The banning of Dr Besigye’s radio adverts on some private FM stations has been a typical NRM character since 1990s, and in all fairness, this should not be part of us anymore as a growing democracy. As some of you may be aware, 1n 1993, the government stopped government offices from giving any advertisement business to the Monitor newspaper, just because they wanted to run it down, which some in the NRM call ‘dying naturally due to mismanagement’.

The Monitor lost about 70 per cent of its advertisement revenue until this decision was reversed in 1997. So, saying it is ‘free will’ for private radio stations to reject Besigye’s adverts is a nonstarter. We should encourage radio owners to contribute to the fairness of these elections by according all candidates the same level of exposure to the voters as much as possible.

There is no harm in this as long as they are not breaking any laws in the process. Radio discrimination by private owners has no place in a genuine democracy. What these radio stations are doing is unacceptable. It’s like opening up a shop and deciding to sell goods only to a specific ethnic group or individuals.

All these forms of discriminations by private enterprises should not appear to be promoted by the political elite in our country as the head of NRM campaign Communications Bureau, Ofwono Opondo, was doing in an NTV YouTube video released recently. Even the chairman of the Electoral Commission, Dr Badru Kiggundu, appears to disagree with what these private stations are doing. The fact is that we should cherish and guard the right of free speech in Uganda. We must always be willing to defend people’s right to say things we deplore to the ultimate degree. That is the way forward!

In USA, they have got the “fairness doctrine’’ introduced, I believe, in the 1940s and it requires broadcasters to cover important controversial issues and to provide an opportunity for contrasting views on those issues. The rules state that radio or TV stations that sell airtime to a political advocate must give free airtime to an opponent to respond. This was rectified by the ‘’Cullman Doctrine’’ in 1960s which holds that a station broadcasting a sponsored advertisement or programme on one side of a controversial issue, thereafter may not refuse to present the opposing viewpoint merely because the station could not obtain paid sponsorship for the opposition presentation. The Americans have also got the ‘equal time’ rule which requires radios and TVs to give equal time to qualified candidates for public office.

What Ofwono Opondo was talking about in the video, of radios or newspapers endorsing candidates in developed nations, is true, but it has no relevance to the radio discrimination going on in Uganda at the moment. By the way, even newspapers that have endorsed candidates are required by law to give space to the opposing views in these countries. For instance, in the UK, the Daily Mail is a known Conservative newspaper but it always finds space for the Labour candidates because the law requires them to do so.

Finally, the State should start taking their Access to Information Act (2005) seriously to help bridge the gap between the government and Ugandans. Any information from government and non-governmental organisations should be made public to avoid more surprises.

This encourages openness and transparency in public institutions. For instance, here in the UK, we have got the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and Data Protection Act 1998 under the office of the Information Commissioner who reports directly to the Parliament, and it is helping everybody.

I have got as much right to know how any ministry is being run as anybody else in the country. Of course, they are some exemptions, but most of this information is not concealed to anybody in the UK. This should be the same in Uganda as it will also help in reducing the levels of corruption in the state system.

There is no point carrying out all this public inquiries into the deaths of big personalities and now we are doing the same with the burning of the Kasubi Tombs, but the public never gets to know the findings. We should have transparency in government dealings.

Mr Semuwemba lives in the United Kingdom

Besigye to punish soldiers who torture Karimojong

Daily Monitor's Steven Ariong reports about Dr. Kizza Besigye's campaign in Moroto where he looked into the issue of insecurity

Moroto

The Inter-Party Cooperation presidential candidate, Dr Kizza Besigye, has promised to punish soldiers accused of involvement in gross human rights violations during the disarmament exercise in Karamoja region.

Dr Besigye, who is campaigning in the region that has been riddled with armed conflict among the warrior cattle rustling tribes and government efforts to pacify the area over several decades, said he would punish soldiers involved in killing of innocent civilians and other gross abuses like castration and other torture.

“Yes I am aware that the UPDF soldiers killed and tortured people while conducting disarmament but I can promise you that I will deal with these so-called commanders to bring them to book,” he told a rally at Kosiroi, Katikekile Sub-county in Moroto District.

Dr Besigye said this after the residents lamented how they were tortured and killed and asked what he would do if he is elected president. But in a statement, the 3rd Division army spokesperson, Lt. Deo Tambwe Akiiki, reacting to a related story attributed to Dr Besigye, accused the opposition politician of being out of touch with the reality on the benefits of the disamarment exercise in Karamoja.

Lt. Akiiki said the fact that Besigye and other candidates have been able to freely canvass support in the area without being moved in armoured vehicles is testimony to the tremendous progress made to pacify the region.

“With due respect to a retired senior officer, I think the IPC flagger bearer should have used the notion of being “briefed and debriefed” treasured in the military by whoever is his aide in this area about how Karamoja was, how it is today and where it is going,” Lt. Akiiki said.

“If this did not happen, then I am afraid the retired senior officer could have lost touch with facts about an area which is a point of focus for all Ugandans and the international community since the defeat of LRA in northern Uganda.”

The place where Besigye held a rally was where the army allegedly killed unarmed civilians in a recent standoff.

In his campaign, Dr Besigye also promised to construct a cement factory in Karamoja, saying the region is rich in minerals but the current government has failed to make good use of that potential to benefit the people.

Dr Besigye also said President Museveni is copying his manifesto. Citing yesterday’s story in one of the dailies’ that stated the government will give loans to university students, Dr Besigye said Museveni is not following what is in his NRM manifesto.

“These are the points I have been making and Museveni is moving around also duplicating them because he has nothing to tell the country for last 24 years he has been in power,” he said.

Government encouraged cattle rustling – Besigye

Observer's Edris Kiggundi writes about how Dr. Kizza Besigye while campaigning in northe-eastern Uganda, he found things in a mess and promised fix the mess once elected the next president.  

Bukwo –The IPC flag bearer, Dr Kizza Besigye, said last week that the NRM government encouraged cattle rustling by allowing the Karimojong a free rein to invade neighbouring communities.

Campaigning in Sebei last week, Besigye said if government had offered protection to the weak communities and looked into the grievances of the Karimojong, the security situation in north-eastern Uganda would have been better.

“Government did nothing when you were being attacked. They have just woken up today, but even then they have failed to disarm the Karimojong,“ Besigye said.

He was responding to queries raised by some people during a rally at Kween district headquarters, eager to know what his government will do to ensure that Karimojong raids and cattle rustling end.

First, Besigye said, government should empower vulnerable communities by providing them with sufficient security.

Secondly, there should be a buffer zone between Karamoja and Kenya, to stem attacks from the Pokot and other Kenyan groups. Lastly, Besigye said, the government should ensure that Karamoja has enough water because that’s one reason forcing them to invade other communities.

If all these are fulfilled, Besigye argued, disarmament of the Karimojong would be easier. However, the government has proclaimed the disarmament exercise a success, saying a number of Karimojong have turned in their guns.

In Kaserem sub-county, Kapchorwa district, Besigye toured a health centre and a police post. At the health centre III which has no doctor, Besigye was taken aback by the deplorable conditions.

“This cannot be described as a health centre. It is something else, maybe a death chamber,” Besigye said.
A nurse reported that there were no drugs; so, their operations were limited. The facility lacks electricity yet the sub-county got onto the power grid five years ago. The single ambulance which the health centre had, a Suzuki, broke down seven years ago and there has been no replacement.

Kaserem health centre was opened by Dr Crispus Kiyonga, then minister of Health, in 1993. The FDC leader urged the people to elect him next year, if they want to see change in their lives. He promised to uplift education, increase salaries of teachers and other public workers, and to support farmers.

Genital Mutilation

About female genital mutilation, which has become a dicey issue in the sub-region, Besigye said it had been mishandled by the government which preferred to use force to enforce the anti-FGM law enacted last year, instead of dialogue.

He said that communities in Sebei sub-region needed to be listened to and their views considered. The practice continues to be practised in the sub-region despite being outlawed.

Besigye’s campaigns in the sub-region, ending on Friday last week, were hampered by the mountainous nature of the terrain and the poor state of roads.

For instance, the journey between Kapchorwa and Bukwo (a distance of about 60km) that would ordinarily take just an hour, took more than three hours. Besigye told the people not to expect better roads and other services if they vote for President Museveni.

“Are you part of Uganda? There is nothing that shows that government has done anything for you,” Besigye said during a campaign stop-over at Giriki River, Kween district.

Some of the people in the district of Bukwo, which borders Kenya, said they rely on Uganda’s neighbour for many services, including health and trade because it was easier to travel to Kenya.

Compared to when he campaigned here in 2006, there is a big change in the sub-region. In 2006, not many people paid attention to him. This time, his rallies attracted sizeable crowds and in some districts like Bukwo, his convoy was blocked at various trading centres as people demanded that he speaks to them.

Also this time round, the FDC is fielding parliamentary candidates in all constituencies here, an indication that the party has developed grassroots structures to rally its supporters.

Karamoja next

On Saturday, Besigye headed to Karamoja where he will spend one week. He was scheduled to start with Amudat before moving on to Nakapiripirit, Moroto, Napak, Kotido and Kaabong. Besigye did not campaign in this sub-region in 2006 partly because of the insecurity there.

Due to this and other factors, the sub-region remains a domain of the NRM and the IPC will have to work hard to gain a political footprint here. The pertinent issues which Besigye will have to address here are the disarmament exercise, poverty and the lack of water.

No war 

Earlier, while campaigning in Pallisa, Besigye assured the nation that there is no need for violence after the 2011 elections.

“Going to the bush will not be necessary. We shall defeat them (NRM) comprehensively. That (taking up arms) will, therefore, not be necessary,” he said when prodded to say whether he will rally his supporters to take up arms in case the vote is stolen.

Besigye, who was on December 11 addressing several rallies in Pallisa district as he wound up his campaign tour of Bukedi region, said his campaign team had engaged a higher gear and gained more momentum. Campaign messages, he said, are now running in both the electronic and print media.

The next step, he said, will be to equip IPC and FDC cadres with ample skills to protect the loose coalition’s vote come February 2011.

Besigye reiterated his and the loose coalition’s commitment to announcing their own results, saying they will not wait for the Electoral Commission to doctor the results.

He said ballots are cast at the ballot box, counted at the polling station and declared at the same polling station, which makes sense for anyone who has the declared results to make his own tally and make the computation public.

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.