By Timothy Nsubuga

6^th Sept 2010

The ruling NRM party may have planted hundreds of soldiers and NRM cadres within the Electoral Commission system to help it rig the 2011 elections; Uganda Correspondent can reveal.

Investigations carried out by Uganda Correspondent in Erute South constituency and Otuke County in Lango indicate that there is a very strong possibility of such a racket taking place across the country.

For example, 117 out of the 163 people interviewed in Lango in the last three weeks said they know at least one NRM cadre in their community who has been recruited as an Electoral Commission Returning Officer on the recommendation of local NRM party officials.

Mr. Samuel Omara Alele, a 37yr old local primary school teacher from Otuke who featured in our report “Voter registers in Lango have 7,000 ghosts” last week, said he knows for sure that the person recruited to act as the Returning Officer at his local polling station is a staunch NRM cadre.  “Our Returning Officer has been an LC official of this area for a long time.  Everybody knows that he is Movement.  Some people even say he is in intelligence”, Mr. Alele said.

Other than at his local polling station, Alele says two of his fellow teachers who come from neighbouring villages also told him that they know some Electoral Commission Returning Officers who openly profess allegiance to the ruling NRM.

In Erute South constituency, Uganda Correspondent spoke to two young women who sell “Lira Lira” [a locally brewed gin] at a local Saturday market.  The ladies, probably in their late teens or early twenties, responded to our questions almost simultaneously; each of them fighting to put in a word about someone they knew to be an NRM cadre who works as an Electoral Commission official in their area.  They however couldn’t confirm whether the people they said were NRM cadres were working as Returning Officers.

When asked if they thought it could be an innocent coincidence that “Movement” people were working for the Electoral Commission, they both, at once again, burst out into a prolonged fit of girlie laughter.

Akullo, the older looking one of the two, simply said “walk through this market and ask other people the same question then come back and tell us what you found.  Movement people are election officials everywhere here”, Akullo said with unmistakable “UPE English”.  But a quick trip through the market threw up something completely different; although equally disturbing!

Two gentlemen who were standing next to a smoky meat roasting stall on the edges of the market told Uganda Correspondent that they think it’s not just Returning Officers.  “Even the people who have been picked to keep peace at the polling stations are soldiers.  In the past, I have seen the same soldiers driving army cars with Museveni’s picture on it”, said one of the men.

The other gentleman confessed that during the 2006 general elections, local NRM leaders convinced some of them to handover their voting cards in return for 5,000 shillings each.  “Some of us were lucky we got 5,000 each because we are strong Besigye people.  Others only got 500-1,000 Shillings”.

He said while the NRM official brought back his voting card, others were ordered to physically go to the polling stations to collect their cards after it had been used to vote for Museveni.  Our request for a comment from the NRM regarding these grave allegations against it sadly never yielded a response.  END.  If it’s Monday, it’s Uganda Correspondent.  Never miss out again!