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

Meanwhile, DP leaders, lead by Akbar Adoko Nekyon a former UPC but who had become a DP before the 1980 elections and has since returned to UPC, were issuing victory to whoever cared to listen. Sections of the foreign press lapped up the information and on crosschecking it with a source given to them by the DP officials in the electoral commission, "confirmed" the DP victory and filed their stories.

Basing their observations on the smooth polling exercise, the Commonwealth Observers also passed their initial verdict - the election broadly reflected the choice of the people of Uganda... that vague expression that now concludes election observer reports was born then. But the real compilation of results was far from over.

1980 election aftermath
To those who insisted that the 1980 elections were stolen, the 'proof' was Muwanga's proclamation on December 11 1980.

The debate on the rigging has over the years centered on this controversial announcement. DP and UPM charged that the Military Commission chief intended to switch the results if DP turned out to be the winner. But a quarter of a century after the act, most people can face the record of events squarely.
On December 18 1980, DP leader Paul Semogerere addressed a press conference in Kampala where he said that the declared results were a reversal of the actual ones on Election Day.

But all he could say was that Muwanga's proclamation "was a departure from the normal procedure governing free and fair elections."
However, UPC argued, and has subsequently been supported by some authors that the decision was necessary because the Electoral Commission had lost control of the process and DP was already announcing that it had won the polls.

Says Prof. George Kanyeihamba in Constitutional and Political History of Uganda: "Admittedly, there is some evidence that in some areas, particularly in Buganda, some DP supporters were getting overenthusiastic and claiming that it had won the seats even where counting of votes had not commenced.

Some of that party's officials released false news and broadcast it to the international media that their party had won elections in Uganda and would be forming the next government."

But still Kanyeihamba says that stopping such a trend should never have been done the way Muwanga did.
"Certainly, such enthusiasm and falsities needed to be contained but not in the manner Paulo Muwanga did.

Muwanga's decision later turned out to be his undoing. Kanyeihamba says: "Paulo Muwanga's statement severely undermined the credibility with which Ugandans and the international community received the news that UPC had won the elections."

Historian Samwiri Karugire (RIP) said in Roots of Instability in Uganda that: "It is as clear as daylight Muwanga did not usurp the powers of the Electoral Commission for nothing. This was the climax in the election rigging."
Museveni's UPM was as ruthless: "The so called decree of 1Oth December that required all election results to be cleared by the Chairman of the Military Commission before they were declared was the highest exhibition of the ruthless manoeuvres through which Obote has come to power," the party said after the elections.

On December 12, Muwanga gave the Electoral Commission the power to announce election results and UPC had won the controversial elections. The official results announced gave UPC 72 seats, DP 51, UPM 1, CP none. 2 seats were not declared, making a total of 126.

UPM rejects results: "Ugandans have been cheated"
UPM National Executive Committee reacted by rejecting the election results, saying that Ugandans have been cheated. "Such a reaction was expected, because the party had in fact been bulldozed into participation having earlier threatened to boycott. When DP dropped the threat, the UPM had no alternative but to tag a long.

The party's response reminded DP that the so-called election safeguards were just a farce, and DP should never have expected to win. "This [UPC victory] should not be a surprise to any Ugandan much less to the DP leadership. The redolent practices UPC has employed in the whole electoral process have all along been highlighted by the UPM and their climax at the polling stage," the party said in response to the declared results.

The party highlighted what it called scandals in which UPC engaged to steal the election as a basis for its rejection. In particular, it cited the proclamation by Muwanga, urging Obote to "recognise the vital role of the will of the people as a whole in shaping their destiny, which will can only be expressed through free and fair elections."

Nyerere, Moi welcome Obote victory
Among the heads of State that first sent congratulatory messages was Tanzania's Julius Nyerere. In a congratulatory message to Obote, Nyerere said he looked forward to cooperating with the UPC leader.