By Stephen Lwetutte
LONDON-UNITED KINGDOM/NEWSDAY: President Museveni has now discarded all pretences of a democratic dispensation as demonstrated by his public statements in Kayunga itself ahead of the vote aimed at redeeming his influence, position and image. This is the latest and clearest sign yet that President Museveni is determined to continue to cling onto power by any other means regardless of what Ugandans think of him and his party, the National Resistance Movement (NRM), than democratic ones. This is quite disappointing and betrayal, but not surprising, for the people who believed in and trusted him 40 years ago to liberate them from tyranny – his now by all accounts appearing to be the worst Uganda has had to live through.
Having failed to subjugate the people, especially in the Buganda Kingdom, through intimidation and fear by his murderous “nja kubamalaho” (Runyoro language for “l will finish off Robert Kyagulanyi) project, despite the documented numerous murders, abductions, torture, disappearances, political incarcerations, President Museveni is now supplementing it with open vote theft. On 14th December 2021 Museveni, addressing his party faithful ahead of the vote for the Kayunga District Chairperson on 16 December 2021, said “whatever anyone does, whether they dance for 20 hours, NRM makes the final decision and in this election we will win,,,”.
He is evidently fed up of being bullied, humiliated and embarrassed by National Unity Platform (NUP) President, Robert Kyagulanyi. It was already clear on the ground that NUP was headed for another landslide win, despite the entire Cabinet and government machinery had already spent weeks in Kayunga bribing and threatening voters. In making that desperate statement, it would appear that Museveni had been appraised about their candidate’s extremely poor electoral fortunes in the district. The by-elections were announced following the death in June 2021 in mysterious circumstances, of the elected NUP District Chairman, Ffeffekka Sserubogo, who is believed to have been assassinated.
As usual, President Museveni had ordered for NUP leader Robert Kyagulanyi to be unlawfully detained at his home in Magere, near Kampala, to prevent him from campaigning and canvassing for votes in Kayunga just like Museveni was doing. Museveni hoped that the Mr Kyagulanyi’s House arrest would save him from the embarrassment of having sparse hired crowds attending his rallies in comparison with Robert Kyagulanyi’s voluntary mammoth rallies of voters willingly turning up to listen to what he had to say.
The detention in prison or at home is a standard tried and tested practice Museveni has used against his political opponents throughout his tenure as President. He knows that in a fair contest he stands no chance whatsoever of winning, which is why he relies on underhand and illegal methods, and even then loses ok each occasion, were it not for voter bribery and ballot stuffing.
In the Kayunga by-election, there are several documented instances of voters bribery on the eve of the election by none other than the Prime Minister of Uganda, Robinah Nabbanja, hitherto considered relatively clean, having been given the benefit of doubt, but who has now also been exposed as deeply corrupt and immoral. She spent several days in the district, with a host of ministers and other senior government officials, the police and the military doing nothing but both buying voters and intimidating them, thus deploying the classic benthamian carrot and stick approach (a principle of reinforcement given by british philosopher Jeremy Bentham during the industrial revolution).
On 16 December 2021, the by-elections day, there several documented instances where ballot boxes, with the collusion of polling officials, were stuffed full hours before the polls opened, yet electoral commission managers failed or plainly refused to intervene. Many voters arrived at their designated polling stations with their names ticked off as already having voted, yet neither explanation nor redress were offered.
The voting itself, where it happened properly, demonstrated that none of the bribery and intimidation worked, with the overwhelming majority of voters chosing Harriet Nakwedde of NUP as their elected Kayunga District Chairperson. At the tally centre, where the announcing of the various polling station results was happening, the visibly overwhelmed Returning Officer, had to take unexplained lengthy breaks and phone calls, with the impact that the tallying to the entire night. It turned out that, even with the rigging, bribery and intimidation of voters, NUP Harriet Nakwedde had registered an unassailable lead of over 15,000 votes.
At that point, the Returning Officer, reported to be the daughter of a former Museveni cabinet minister, Kabakumba Matsiko, started announcing results with NUP’s Nakwedde getting zero and NRM’s Andrew Muwonge getting more votes than voters at polling stations. The final tally announced gave the win to Muwonge with a win of just over 400 votes, even with all the rigging. This is still a huge humiliation for a President who shifted his entire Cabinet to Kayunga and huge resources to secure an MRM win by hook or crook, yet Robert Kyagulanyi managed to successfully command from Magere. The conspicuously muted reaction to this stolen win within the NRM itself also speaks volumes.
In a dramatic and unprecedented development following the announcement of the sham NRM win, a number of NRM members have publicly and privately, off the record, joined NUP not only to query that win, but also to disown and distance themselves from it – the decent ones are deeply troubled and cannot live with their conscience with such brazen voter theft. Many realise that Uganda is bigger than NRM and Museveni’s ego, and will outlive both. They are thus clearly taking measures to clear and secure their name, image and reputation in a future democratic Uganda. What a statement!
This might indicate something more fundamental than we have ever witnessed in our history – patriotically-minded Ugandans, including ruling party members, discarding party politcal allegiances and joining hands with others to push for and get a change that is overdue to all Ugandan, 60 years since achieving political independence from the British.
The “nja kubamalaho” project might need to be resurrected, only this time targeted at widespread and growing internal dissent – could this be the boomerang effect from the anti-Kyagulanyi “nja kubamalaho” mission that was buried on Thursday 16 December 2021? A mischievous Robert Kyagulanyi could now rightly launch his own version, and even choose to code-name it “nja kubamalawo” (Luganda language equivalent to “l will finish off President Museveni”) mission, in a spectacular reversal of roles and fortunes. The showdown is only still in its early days, but there are no prizes on offer for guessing its likely trajectory.
The writer is a Multilingual Human Rights Practitioner, formerly at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International in London for over 20 years and now Legal and Human Rights Consultant.
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