UGANDA'S FLAWED ELECTIONS: Bwengye spits fire at flawed poll and the Commonwealth report

One wonders why the COG concluded that (the way it did).

It is not clear to us as to why the COG concluded that if the legal provisions of displaying the voters' registers were not complied with no problem was poised. It is also perplexing to note that the COG could afford to overlook the heavy registration malpractices in the South-Western districts and in the West Nile Province which could, and indeed did, adversely affect the outcome of the election. These areas counted for over forty seats which were nearly one-third of all the seats contested.

Another aspect of the registration that had a negative effect on the election and the results thereof, was the high-handed dismissal of the 14 District Commissioners by the Military Commission. These officers were dismissed from public service because they did not come out to support the UPC, work for its interests during the registration exercise, and suppress the DP and UPM.

The DCs dismissed were men of distinguished civil service career. Some had reached positions of Under-Secretaries.
One wonders what the COG was up to when they said that in their view that may not have affected the ultimate results.

The Nomination Fiasco

The nomination exercise was a very big mess. The UPC had laid strategies to mess up the exercise and come out with at least twenty unopposed candidates. After the administrative tricks, intimidation and harrassment of the DP and UPM candidates were resorted to. The most outstanding cases were in Arua, Kasese, Moyo, Apac and Lira. Lamentably the Electoral Commission compounded these malpractices of the UPC. The Obversvers’ report on these incidents reveals the Commission's guilt by saying:

“When asked by the Group what action the Electoral Commission proposed to take regarding these allegations, the Chairman replied that the Commission was awaiting the reports of the Returning Officers concerned and would let the group know as soon as they were received. Nothing further was heard from the Commission about them.
In case of Kasese where the DP candidates were properly nominated, the Commission decided to take Obote's orders and cancel the nominations and then declare the UPC unopposed just a few days before the polling day.

Putting all the facts together the COG comes to a logical and, indeed, the right conclusion: “When we view the way in which some Returning Officers acted when processing nomination papers of other parties (DP and UPM), and the part played by the Electoral Commission itself in respect of Kasese and Masaka North, a finding of partiality cannot be resisted.

The COG went on to report:

The effect of the unopposed returns on the arithmetic of the outcome is difficult to assess. Some of the seats in question (such as in Apac, Lira and Soroti - FAWB) would almost certainly have fallen to the UPC had polling taken place, but equally in some others (such as in Kasese, Arua, Moyo, and Moroto - FAWB) the DP would have stood a good chance of victory.

That the DP would have won in Kasese, Arua Moyo and Moroto was a foregone conclusion. The UPC was extremely weak in these areas. And these areas contained nine seats which the DP was pretty sure to win with overwhelming majority. What is surprising is to see that after the COG had made the above conclusion they then jumped to some other conclusion too which does not tally with the first one. On comparing the two paragraphs, one wonders whether it was the same Group making the same conclusions.

They said: “We have expressed at some length our reservations regarding nominations and a number of unopposed returns: without questions, this is the area most open to criticism.

We would, however, add that about half the seats involved are likely to have been captured by the UPC in any event, so that despite their effect on the arithmetic, they are not likely to have affected the outcome.”

Besides the absurdity and dispartiy in both conclusions, one wonders on what basis the COG could conclude the "half the seats involved are likely to have been captured by the UPC.”

In Kasese the UP would have captured the three seats. Traditionally "Kasese is a DP controlled zone". So were Kumi and Moroto. The DP would also have won all the five seats in West Nile. If these seats added to the 52 the DP had in Parliament after the election, that would have added to 62 seats.