President Yoweri Museveni has backed NRM electoral commission head Dr Tanga Odoi’s strong stance against manipulation of results from the national primaries held on Friday. The NRM electoral chief has postponed several contests across the country due to violence and suspended some results after reports they were manipulated.
In a message congratulating the NRM fraternity for the massive turn-out and participation, Museveni warned of “shallow people who resort to shallow schemes to steal the power of the people.”
He was referring to cases of reported manipulation of results in several areas across the country.
Electoral boss Tanga Odoi has had to physically intervene to resolve disputes, and in the latest cancelled the Kiruhura polls after he said indications are that the tallying had been tampered with in favour of Col.(Rtd) Fred Mwesigye.
Earlier in the day, Police also confirmed the arrest of State Minister for Labour Mwesigwa Rukutana after reports he shot at some election officials in a dispute after he lost the race in in his area.
Museveni decried reports of bribing, intimidation, altering declaration forms, attacking and injuring people, using the underage to vote, importing voters from other areas.
“It is an exercise in futility for anybody to create a new reality on DR forms that is not in the villages. Anybody who participated in such transparent criminality commits fraud and the sentence for fraud is 3-5 years in prison.
He urged aggrieved candidates to get facts from a sample of villages from village agents, “who must speak truthfully otherwise they will also be charged with aiding and abetting a fraud as well as making false declarations.”
He promised that the Police will cross-check and criminal proceedings will be initiated. The same with other crimes- bribery, intimidation, assaults.
“We should not allow crooks to pollute our massive force that you saw yesterday. Down with crooks. I am not Tanga Odoi but my entering from the criminal side, which is my Constitutional duty as President, will help Tanga Odoi. Help us with the facts. Congratulations,” he said.
Greetings and congratulations on the massive turn-out. You showed the world what democracy means. I congratulate those who won. I also congratulate those that did not win but who participated.
Unfortunately, there are shallow people who resort to shallow schemes to steal the power of the people. These do the following: bribing, intimidation, altering declaration forms, even attacking and injuring people, using the underage to vote, importing voters from other areas etc.
These are all shallow schemes that are easy to expose. The 2nd Law of Moses says: “Thou shalt not worship idols”. The emphasis put on DR forms is worshipping idols.
The real thing is what happened in the village. 200 legitimate voters lined behind candidate “A” and 100 lined behind candidate “B”. Similar exercises happened in the 606 villages of Luwero district, for instance. The elections are finished.
The rest is simply totaling up. It is an exercise in futility for anybody to create a new reality on DR forms that is not in the villages. Anybody who participated in such transparent criminality commits fraud and the sentence for fraud is 3-5 years in prison. This crime is easy to prove because in the example of the village X we used, there are 300 witnesses – the 200 that voted for A and 100 that voted for B.
Therefore, the aggrieved candidates, get facts from a sample of villages from your village agents, who must speak truthfully otherwise they will also be charged with aiding and abetting a fraud as well as making false declarations, the Police will cross-check and criminal proceedings will be initiated.
The same with other crimes- bribery, intimidation, assaults etc.; just get facts. We should not allow crooks to pollute our massive force that you saw yesterday. Down with crooks. I am not Tanga Odoi but my entering from the criminal side, which is my Constitutional duty as President, will help Tanga Odoi. Help us with the facts. Congratulations again.
Ykm.