The chairman of Election Commission, Justice Simon Byabakama, has refuted claims that the commission issued ballot papers to the National Resistance Movement (NRM) members a head of the just concluded bye-election in Hoima district.
The hotly contested bye-election was won by the NRM candidate Harriet Busingye who polled 33301 votes against Forum for Democratic Change flag bearer Asinansi Nyakato who garnered 28789 votes.
Upon the declaration of NRM candidate as the duly elected Woman MP of Hoima, the patron of people power, a political pressure group who doubles as the Kyadondo East MP, Robert Kyagulanyi, said the bye-election was marred with violence and high levels of election malpractices. “Security forces have for past few days been deployed in Hoima, not to keep law and order but to help Museveni and his regime rig this election.” He said
However, according to Justice Byabakama, the Electoral Commission received a report of attempted ballot stuffing at only one of the polling station where two agents for Candidate Nyakato namely, Michael Kabaziguruka and Maj. Gen. Mugisha Muntu (Rtd) reported to the commission that a voter attempted to insert pre-ticked ballot papers of an NRM candidate into the ballot box, but was intercepted by the polling constable for that station.
“The pre-ticket ballot papers should have been handed over to police for further investigation however, Gen. Muntu insisted that they (ballots) be handed over to the Electoral Commission. The commission assigned one of our senior legal officers to receive them, and a total of 51 ticked ballot papers were handed over to us.” He said in a statement released earlier today.
Mr. Byabakama, said there were acts of suspected forgery by some FDC supporters who made counterfeit accreditation tags and distributed them to their agents for purposes of observing the by-election.
The suspects who include Hakim Kizza a member Democratic Party (DP) and one Walakira, have since been charged with forgery before the Magistrate’s Court at Hoima and are now remanded, as investigations continue.
He warned the general public, and particularly stakeholders in the electoral process that forgery of election materials is a criminal act.
“The commission also noted with concern the abuse of social media platforms by some individuals during the electoral process. This was particularly widespread during the tallying of elections results. A lot of falsehood was disseminated, for example, fictitious results from non-existing polling stations.” He said and condemned the behavior saying it misleads the public and other stakeholders and gives voters false hope about the results.
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