Kampala: Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni Museveni has vowed to replace the present Electoral Commission with cadres of his ruling NRM party. “The Electoral Commission is full of rotten people,” Museveni was quoted as saying a women’s conference in Kampala. “I am going to get rid of them [EC]. Why should we suffer with corrupt election officials when NRM has got so much manpower?,” he said during the National Women’s Council conference. However, later the State House did not mention anything about Museveni’s threat to dissolve the EC. Museveni’s warning comes on the wake of the defeat NRM suffered in the August 15 Arua Municipality parliamentary by-election which was won by the Opposition despite the president himself campaigning for his party’s candidate.
By-election defeats
In March, Paul Mwiru of the Opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party defeated NRM’s Nathan Nabeta to claim Jinja East parliamentary seat in a by-election. In June, NRM’s Winfred Masiko lost to FDC’s Betty Muzanira in the Rukungiri District Woman MP race. In July, Asuman Basalirwa, from the Jeema party, won Bugiri Municipality seat, defeating his rivals who included NRM’s Francis Oketcho. Explaining his party’s electoral defeats, Museveni said NRM lost the Jinja by-election because the Opposition allegedly ferried voters from elsewhere to vote for Mwiru. He said he had notified the EC about the ‘ghost voters’ on the register but the electoral body did not take action.
In the case of the Rukungiri by-election, where the army and police were deployed, Museveni claimed the Opposition transported gangsters from Kampala to Rukungiri to intimidate the NRM supporters to keep away from voting. On the contrary, the Opposition had accused the President of deploying security forces to harass and intimidate voters to give his NRM party an edge over its rivals. Museveni also claimed that the Arua Municipality seat slipped out of NRM’s grip because as in the case of Jinja East, there were many strangers’ names on the voters register. When EC spokesperson Jotham Taremwa was contacted for comments, he said the commission “does not take President Museveni’s statements lightly.”
“We appreciate criticisms from all our stakeholders in the electoral process because they help us to follow up with a view of establishing the facts,” Taremwa said. “And on this very concern [by the President], the commission will investigate it and get to the bottom of the matter,” he added. During the women’s conference, Museveni asked his supporters to furnish him with a list of prospective appointees to the public service.
Reactions
“So, instead of fighting over political positions… get me manpower…so we create the system of the government,” he said. For his party to achieve its goals, Museveni said it should have cadres not only in Parliament and district local governments but also in government departments and agencies.
