Uganda’s main opposition party calls for vote recount after Kayunga local elections

The Electoral Commission had announced the victory of the government candidate by nearly 500 votes

Madrid, 20 cities. 2021 (Europe Press) –

The opposition National Unity Platform party protested the results of last week’s local elections in Kayonga, after the electoral commission gave victory to the candidate of the ruling party led by President Yoweri Museveni.

The opposition formation demanded a recount of votes, arguing that its data showed that its candidate, Harriet Nkwedi, received 34,262 votes, compared to 20164 votes for the candidate of the National Resistance Movement, Andrew Muong.

Thus, he confirmed that Nkoideh won 273 polling stations, compared to 53 polling stations won by Muungi, despite the fact that the electoral commission gave the victory of the nationalist movement candidate by about 500 votes.

The vote was marked by the arrests of journalists, dissidents and PUP followers during the day before the vote, leading the party’s general secretary, David Lewis Robongoya, to accuse the government of “silencing the voices” of Ugandans.

He said, as reported by Ugandan newspaper “Daily Monitor”: “These early elections showed how low the government appreciates the (electoral) process and the lack of democracy. We won these elections and everyone can see it.”

For his part, the leader of the Patriotic Union Party, Robert Kyogulani, published in his account on the social network Facebook, more than 330 electoral documents showing contradictions with the data announced by the Electoral Commission.

Bobby Wayne, as the opponent is known, said, “We have to have an honest conversation about the direction of the fight against dictatorship in this country. The oppressor, not the oppressed, determines the course of the struggle.”

But the election commission spokesman, Paul Bukenya, asked the parties to appear in court. It has been settled that “they have the right, if they are not satisfied with the results, to take a case before the court, in accordance with the provisions of the law.”

Bobby Wayne himself denounced before the vote that the military had surrounded his home to prevent him from attending the campaign event on the same day Museveni traveled to Kayonga to attend a similar event in support of Muong.

Museveni won re-election in the January elections with 58 percent of the vote, compared to 35 for Kiagulani, who refused to accept the results and denounced fraud in favor of the president.

The vote came after nearly 50 people were killed as a result of a police crackdown on protests that began in November 2020 after Bobby Wayne was arrested during a campaign event in the face of the presidential election, amid complaints from the opposition and the party. The international community.