UGANDA'S FLAWED ELECTIONS: December 10, 1980; polling day Museveni challenges Kuteesa’s win in court

In this part, Victor Karamagi looks at the controversial Muwanga proclamation and the election aftermath.

Even after the UPC had secured 17 unopposed seats out of 126, the DP went into the elections in high spirits, confident that the anti-Obote felings in parts of the country was enough to sweep at least 64 of the remaining 109 seats.

Muwanga proceeded to grant most of the safeguards he had promised in Dar es Salaam but remained firm against the use of one ballot box per polling station. The biggest concession Muwanga made and which ensured that the elections were conducted in a safe, free atmosphere was to lock up all the soldiers in the barracks and remove all the roadblocks on polling day.

December 10 was very peaceful throughout the country. The people turned up in full force to vote and they were not hindered in this pursuit. But it had been collective wishful thinking on the part of everybody to expect the election materials to be delivered to all polling stations on time that day.

With minimal transport and broken down infrastructure, it was physically impossible to supply all the polling stations in the morning. As a result, voting did not start in some stations until after midday.

Although polling was supposed to close that afternoon, voting had hardly began in some stations. After a flury of consultations, with all the attendant suspicions, it was agreed that the military commission extends the voting until 2.00 pm on December 11.

DP supporters as expected claimed that Muwanga wanted the ballot boxes to be tampered with at night so that their many votes could be switched and given to UPC. But all the people maintained vigil and there was no documented case of any ballot switching.

The next day, DP leaders started announcing that their party had won over 70 constituencies. It transpired that they were basing on results from the nearby areas of Buganda and Busoga which had overwhelmingly voted for DP.

Taken to task over all the claims, they admitted to the commonwealth observers that they had not received results for all the constituencies they were claiming. Counting was actually, still going on in some of the constituencies the DP was claiming.

It is amidst all this confusion that Paulo Muwanga had issued the unforgettable proclamation, which DP always cites as evidence that the election was stolen. Results that had so far been announced indicated that DP was heading for victory. Then the bomb: Muwanga issued a proclamation barring anyone from announcing the election results.

The decree had made it a criminal offence punishable by a fine of 500,000 shillings (then $70,000) or a prison term of up to five years or both. Only the Military Commission Chairman had the powers to announce the results, and he had the discretion to declare results null and void. He directed all returning officers to send results directly to him, sidestepping the Electoral Commission.
In effect, Muwanga took over the powers of the electoral body.

Muwanga had panicked by the premature claims of victory and outlawed the announcement of results except by himself. To the DP supporters in the central region and nearby districts of Busoga where their party had won by almost 100 percent, this could be nothing but a plot to steal their victory.

Muwanga's side was not amused by the proclamation either. They viewed it as ammunition to the DP to claim that their victory was being stolen. Candidate Obote reprimanded head of state Muwanga for the blunder. Obote knew the central region had voted heavily against his party but he did not fear their reaction if he was eventually announced the winner.

He repeated his favourite line about inhabitants of the central region: "The Baganda are a funny people; they defy you if they suspect you are weak but once they know you are strong, they fall in line." Chastised, Muwanga signed another instrument to rescind the proclamation.

When the Commonwealth Observers, on the fervent pleas of the DP, went in to demand that he withdraws the proclamation, they were surprised when he simply accepted without argument. They did not know that the decision had already been taken. They were out of his office in a minute.