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

Cogent evidence showed that some unscrupulous polling stall would interchange the labels from the boxes or open the boxes and steal some votes from one box and put them into another box.
So when it came to the 1980 general election, the DP and UPM demanded that the counting be done on the spot at each polling station.

The poll was scheduled to start at 8.00 a.m. and end at 6.00 p.m. on the 10th day of December 1980, which was the gazetted day. At the close of the day counting of votes commenced as the Electoral Commissions' radio announcement had directed. By the afternoon the Military Commission started getting feelers from UPC agents throughout the country that the DP had won over 50% of the seats where so far counting had been completed. The UPC, the Electoral Commission and the Military Commission panicked. Then they decided to extend the poll to 2.00 p.m. on 11th December. The Electoral Commission made an announcement to that effect.

The Group was relieved from tension in which the Proclamation put them when on the morning of the following day, Paulo Muwanga had in advance of their representations, prepared a press statement which he had, allegedly agreed upon with the "leaders" of the UPC and DP. For no apparent reasons the UPM was left out of the agreement. According to the Group, this statement "had the effect of preserving the Proclamation in force whilst authorising Returning Officers and the Electoral Commission to publicly announce the results".

During all this time Obote and Muwanga were meeting in camera doctoring and concocting the results. After this, they “allowed” the Electoral Commission to announce the “results” which were doctored and concocted according to their wishes.

Muwanga's ill-fated Proclamation was published on the 11th day of December 1980 and not on the 10th as the government gazette purported. It is obvious that the Proclamation could not have been published on the 10th December and then deemed to have come into force on the same day. The date of 10th seems to be a fraudulent one. Although this date is stated to be the publication date, the Proclamation seems to have been enacted and published on the 11th of December.

The Military Commission dated the publication 10th December because that was their last day in power. It should be noted that their mandate had ceased on the date of 10th December which was the voting date. Above all, Muwanga as the Military Commission's Chairman, had no powers either on behalf of the Commission or on that of himself alone, to make any Proclamation.

The (Commonwealth Observers’) Report docs not mention anywhere the tact that by the time statutory power was restored to the Electoral Commission the Secretary to the Commission, plus three of the seven members of the Commission, who were all serving actively when the polling began, had disappeared from their offices.

The remaining four were all staunch UPC supporters and Obote’s appointees. On the 11th day of December, Vincent Ssekono, the Secretary to the Electoral Commission disappeared into thin air after he had been intimidated by Obote personally. According to Ssekono himself, he had been hurriedly summoned to Obote's home at Kololo to meet Obote who told him that if he, Ssekono, interfered with the UPC's victory he would be sent to the gallows. Obote told him that he and the U PC had fought against Amin and they therefore had to come to power at any cost. Frightened by this, Ssekono had to abandon the whole exercise and flee the country.

The Report only mentions Ssekono in thanking him for his "helpful and co-operatrive approach in facilitating our work". It does not at all mention his mysterious disappearance at the peak of the election exercise. The Group could not even mention the fact that ten days before the polling, Ssekono's personal assistant was shot dead at his home in Makindye by people in UNLA uniform who are believed to have been UNLA soldiers.

The COG's predicament is ably summarised by Fred Bridgland of the Scotsman when he said: “In actual fact, by the time Mr. Muwanga handed nominal power back to the Electoral Commission they were paralysed by fear and had effectively become Mr. Muwanga's prisoners.

All the Commonwealth Observer Report tells the reader is that the Observer worked with Brigadier Oyite-Ojok, the pro-Obote Commander Uganda Army to persuade the Electoral Commission to start announcing the results as presented to it by Mr. Muwanga. This raises a multitude of questions which the Report ignominously fails to answer.

For example, why did theCommonwealth Observers need to persuade the fear-ridden Electoral Commission to start announcing the results? And why did they need the Commander of the Army (Oyite-Orok)to help them? The Electoral Commission was neutered by legal decrees as well as by fear, and returning offices were cowed into silence.”

Conclusion

Those diplomats and political analysts who criticise the Commonwealth as
having "allowed itself to be used to endorse an exercise which had been a mockery of democracy and which should have been assessed as such before the Commonwealth decided to come" are justified.

The Commonwealth Office which is supposed to observe the principles of democracy and to be an association of free and democratic states rendered itself to ridicule in the eyes of the majority of Ugandans, Africa and the world at large.