Mbabazi beaten at home in Kanungu

KAMPALA – The poor performance of former Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi has been compounded with the latest provisional results indicating he returned a distant third, in his home district of Kanungu.

Preliminary results indicate that President Museveni, the ruling NRM party candidate won the district with 17,017 votes, Dr Kizza Besigye, the opposition DFC flagbearer came second with 9, 473 votes and Mr Mbabazi, a distant third with 1, 075 votes. The tallying of the results for the presidential and parliamentary elections are underway with the Electoral Commission expected to announce the winner of the presidential polls later today.

The overall poor performance of Mr Mbabazi, who entered the presidential race with pomp after breaking ranks with President Museveni in 2014, and sought to challenge him for the top office, has been a key highlight of the campaigns, with the former Prime Minister noticeably failing to make inroads into the ruling NRM support. An attempt to by the civil society groups under The Democratic Alliance (TDA) to make Mr Mbabazi a joint opposition flagbearer, ahead of Dr Besigye was rejected by the FDC, which insisted on fielding its party flag bearer. Dr Besigye has run an energetic campaign, vindicating the FDC position, which initially came under heavy criticism.

Mr Mbabazi, and his Go Forward outfit has performed as negligibly as other fringe candidates - Joseph Mabirizi (Independent), Abed Bwanika of (People’s Development Party), Benon Biraaro (Uganda Farmers Party), Maureen Kyalya (Independent), and Venansius Baryamureeba (Independent).