By Sharon S. Tibenda

20^th Dec 2010

IPC leaders in a meeting early in the year

FDC’s Secretary for Mobilisation Maj. Gen [Rtd] Mugisha Muntu has said the IPC is putting in place mechanisms to protect the integrity of ballot papers, to guard its votes, and announce provisional results within 6hrs of the closures of polling stations.

Gen. Muntu said this while responding to last week’s Afrobarometer opinion poll which gave President Museveni a controversial 66% lead over his main challenger Dr Kizza Besigye who the poll says will win 12%. According to the poll, UPC’s Olara Otunnu and DP’s Norbert Mao are tied at 3% each, and the other presidential candidates scoring next to nothing.  Gen. Muntu the widespread fear caused by intimidation from Golombolola Internal Security Officers (GISO’s) and Village Internal Security Officers (VISO’s) makes the New Vision’s Afrobarometer opinion poll that put President Museveni in the lead totally flawed.

He lashed out at the overall environment in which the poll was conducted, arguing that respondents were unaware of the fact that the questionnaire is routinely sent to President Museveni’s office for prior approval.  This, Muntu said, “…enables the Office of the President, GISOs and VISOs to carry out parallel mobilization and intimidation exercises in the target areas with the “Yellow Books”, which are the NRM’s membership registers”.

Gen. Muntu added that very often, the security agencies intimidate citizens in rural areas by demanding that they confirm their support for the ruling NRM party. For those reasons, Muntu said, “…Ugandans have become afraid of researchers who come asking for their political views and now find it safer to declare themselves Museveni’s supporters”.

To back up his claims, Gen. Muntu also pointed to the fact that in the same Afrobarometer opinion poll, up to 63% of respondents said they did feel free to comment on political issues.

Muntu concluded his thoughts on the Afrobarometer poll by saying that the IPC’s “…overall assessment is that due to the climate of intimidation in the country, Afrobarometer (no blame to them) have published an opinion poll that does not reflect the voting intentions of the majority of Ugandans.  The…poll results are therefore flawed by the fear factor”.

Muntu also said because of Museveni’s terrible record or rigging elections as the Supreme Court has indeed twice confirmed, many Ugandans have now given up hope in the possibility of ever having free and fair elections under Museveni.

The IPC’s 2011 election winning strategy

The retired General however urged opposition supporters to remain calm.  “…There is no need to panic. Our supporters should remain firm. The IPC and the FDC are confident that even with the expected rigging by Museveni and his NRM Dr Besigye will still win close to 60% of the national vote”.

The biggest question mark hanging over this election, Muntu said, is not the level of support the opposition already enjoys “…but the extent to which we can overwhelm rigging”.

To overwhelm Museveni’s rigging, Muntu said, they strongly appeal to every opposition supporter to recruit at least five new people to support IPC/FDC candidates at all levels and to make a Shs 500/- weekly [or as often as they can] contribution to the campaign through the IPC’s Mobile Money accounts.

He said the IPC has also established a vote protection unit (VPU) which will focus on the integrity of the ballot papers, from printing and serial numbering (abroad), to importation, storage, and distribution to districts and polling stations. “…We want to assure our supporters that those ballot papers will never be out of our sight”, Muntu said.

Muntu added that the IPC is establishing a vote tallying centre that is independent of the one established by the Museveni-Kiggundu Electoral Commission.  “…We will have a minimum of 10 agents at each of the 24,000 polling stations and a system for their selection, training, deployment, facilitation, and supervision is already being put in place”, the retired General said.

Finally, Muntu revealed that the IPC is putting in place a reliable system for retrieving election results from all 24,000 polling stations within 6 hours of completion of voting and we aim to announce provisional results by the afternoon of the day after voting.  END. Please log into www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories and anytime mid-week for our news updates.