Jinja East By-Election: FDC Candidate Paul Mwiru won the seat again and it wasn’t easy!

For the fourth time, the Forum for Democratic Change Paul Mwiru won the seat in Jinja East By-Election today. Earlier in the day it was dark, it was bleak, not because he lacks public support. The rallies has been packed and the support of the citizens been there. The police and the army was all out, they were doing the work of the National Resistance Movement (NRM). It would have expected to move it in favor of the NRM Candidate Nathan Igeme Nabeta. By the standard of things, the Electoral Commission would cook the numbers together with the pre-ticked ballots and proclaim Nabeta the winner. Because that would fit President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. However, the social media, the CCEDU presence and the people questioning the ill-behavior stopped the madness.

Even if the streets was filled with soldiers, even massive scores of soldiers at the polling stations. FDC activists and leaders detained. Even in the days before and today, the Deputy Secretary General Harold Kajja was detained today. We could have expected also Secretary General Patrick Amuriat Oboi too, who posted pictures with ballots earlier in the day, but Kajja wasn’t that fortunate. There are still many of the FDC activists, the ones meeting at the FDC Office after the final rally on the 13th March 2018. They are still not released. The NRM are not forgiving and has no problem with acting against the law, when coming to detaining political prisoners. This is not new in the Republic, but yet another election with this sort of intimidation and harassment of fellow citizens who is naturally loyal to the Movement.

So, the incumbent had his joys, even as the NRM used all their force, all the government extravagance and even the President rallying for his NRM Candidate. The same candidate that Mwiru has challenged since before 2011. With similar numbers as today. The state hasn’t sufficient support for their man in Jinja East, they are trying the same lingo, but dropping the spoiled goods every time. They have now called for new elections in between 2011 and now, therefore, he has been elected four times. We understand that Museveni wants his own guy, but Jinja East doesn’t support Nabeta that much.

Museveni can send the army, pre-ticket ballots counting 8000, when the total tally of counted ballots today was 12,103. That means with the numbers Nabeta got, he would have gotten today 5,043 + 8000 is totally 13043. If that had been so, it would have been more voters than possible. That meaning the EC was planning big scale locally cooking of the numbers to get Nabeta in Parliament. You should wrinkle your mind there. When considering that Paul Mwiru got 6,654 votes today. Which was significantly enough to beat Nabeta with the government backing.

The state even with soldiers, police force active in partisan politics and the machinery ready to move the rigging affair too. If it wasn’t for mobile phones and civil activist for electoral codes in CCEDU. The picture might have been a affair where the NRM had gotten their way. They had intimidated and shut it down in favor of Museveni’s man. Even if the population of Jinja East wants Mwiru again. Because, Museveni doesn’t get that. That is why they exposed all the madness, why the FDC camped there to secure it and not let it go.

It is good to see NRM loose, but it is costly, since they use all vile force, they doesn’t spare the security organizations, they use intimidation and tactics that isn’t favor of a free and fair election. It is so messed up and the ones who follow knows this. It shouldn’t be this hard to get an opposition Member of Parliament elected to the 10th Parliament. However it is, and it says everything about the NRM and Musveni at this point. Peace.

Jinja East By-Election: Return Form for Tranmission of Results (15.03.2018)

CCEDU: Statement on the Jinja East MP by Election (15.03.2018)

Jinja By-Election: Intimidation and Rigging – The whole NRM M.O. in full effect!

Nathan Igeme Nabeta voting at Main Street Primary School in Jinja town.

You know that your candidate sucks, when you have to send the army into the streets of Jinja East. That is at least the evidence found for the National Resistance Movement Member of Parliament Candidate Nathan Igeme Nabeta. Who can sleep and get sick as a future MP, because he will naturally work for the agenda and causes President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni wants him too.

This Jinja East By-Election is just a proof, that the NRM regime are doing whatever they can to stop any independent mind or opposition MP into the Parliament. They use all venues, they arrest FDC personnel, the arrests their activists and their people on the ground. Just this week after the final rally for the FDC candidate Paul Mwiru, the state went to FDC Offices in Jinja and detained 51 of them. Without no hesitation, just to hurt the final stages of the campaign.

This just shows again, that the Uganda Police Force, is more political motivated, than being an actual crime-fighter brigade. Because they are working in favour of the president and his will. They do anything, not just to secure the voters get to vote in peace, but to intimidate, as usual. That is why tear-gas vans and other mambas has driving down the streets. It is insane, but only natural in the republic, which Museveni resides.

There are 47 polling stations, but considering the amounts of police and army personnel, you would not think this was not a by-election, but a hostile takeover. That someone was invading Jinja East and making sure, they did the right thing. In this regard, vote for the future sleepyhead Nabeta. I do not even know if he had a message during his campaign, because all that came out of his rallies. Was the standing and words of the President!

I do not know if that was by accident, but clearly, we cannot mistake that. Just like the clips and photos of the police beating anyone who they think might vote for Mwiru. If you think this democratic, if it is justified, you are wrong. This is just a vicious attempt of taking control of the seat in Parliament.

At this point, the NRM owns the Parliament and has the advantage anyhow, so I do not see it. Nevertheless, Museveni must conspire something out of his sleeve or back pocket. Because he has sent the irons, the blades and the tricks of his trade to the Jinja East.

At this point, the results does not matter, because the rigging, the anticipation for a fair result is gone. This is the sort of staged affair. That should be cancelled and new re-run with serious contending parties and no partial policing in the district, I know that is a dream, but that is if the ruling regime would fair. Which is not and never intend to be.

We know now that Nabeta is a sucky candidate, a candidate not worth writing about, as the popularity is in the hands of previous winner Mwiru of the FDC. However, the NRM and the Police wants it otherwise. I should care about the result, but it’s hard to do so, when the Police and the army is used in this fashion. It is petty politics, where the Commander-in-Chief, where the President sends his forces to teach his people a lesson. This isn’t an election. At this point, it is a Presidential Selection. Peace.

Statement by Hon. Onesimus Twinamasiko on remarks he made in the media about women (14.03.2018)

Opinion: President Museveni burns the candle at both ends!

Even if the NRM MP is sick and sleepy, he’s still better than an acting opposition MP who’s very active. He might be inactive in other things but if he seconds the issues of govt, then he has contributed a brick to the peace of the country” – President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni at a Campaign Rally (13.03.2018)

It is time to for President Museveni to stop his mixed messages. Because today during a By-Election Campaign Rally, he said there was no issues if a National Resistance Movement (NRM) Member of Parliament is sleeping. Why I am revealed by that, is that he is initially telling the crowds. Just elect my stooges, my cronies, I decide anyway, it is all my agenda. All that is done is on my time and my watch. The NRM MPs can be sick and can sleep. You shouldn’t mind them. Because they are just voting when I need them, the rest of the time, they are just lackeys that I have to take care off. So it’s good that the President is telling the truth. Because that is what he did.

However, sleeping was a problem 24 hours ago. Therefore, it is okay for his lackeys, but not for people in general: “President Museveni has said Ugandans, and Africans more generally, are poor because they spend too much time sleeping. “Africa is so rich because we have got water, land, minerals, good weather. So, how does this (poverty) come about? It is because of nino (Langi for sleeping),” Mr Museveni said. In Africa, he noted, there is also a lot of “oversleeping”” (Oketch, 2018)

Shouldn’t there be a coherent message, that sleep for NRM MPs is good because it fixes my agenda and my life as President. But the citizens has to awake and work? How come? Why them and not the representatives? It doesn’t add up?

Well, if the riches, the cronies can get away with sleep, why shouldn’t the people of Gulu and Arua sleep? Why should they stress collecting, hustling and doing whatever, when their NRM representative is always sleeping the few times they have to show up for Plenary Session in Parliament. What gives?

Museveni is showing his lack of well-thought thinking. One day saying sleeping is bad, the next day it’s good. Africa and Uganda is poor because people sleep. However, his cronies and lackeys they can sleep all they want. They don’t have to work, because Museveni makes the agenda. When they are representing the people, aren’t it okay that the people also sleep? If they have sleepy-face in parliament, cannot the constituents be sleepy in alley and the valley? Why not?

I know that you have to awake to able to work. You have to enough sleep to be productive, that is the same for a farmer, as much as for an MP. Unless the MP get instruction and just have to vote “yay” and the day is done. While the farmer still needs energy to toil the soil and make sure the seedlings grow. So an MP needs less. That is natural, but still the MP should be the most eager, since the delivery of the MP is for his constituents and for the Republic.

That is lost in all of this, because Museveni wants people to sleep and not see his double-standard. Peace.

Reference:

Oketch, Bill – ‘Sleep making Ugandans poor – Museveni’ (12.03.2018) link:http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Sleep-Ugandans-poor-Museveni-Dokolo-Africans-/688334-4337600-116na2m/index.html

RDC: CLC – “Appel du Comite Laic De Coordination – Jusqu’Au Bout Nous Irons!” (12.03.2018)

Opinion: The EU is too late to the Party, when they are now asking for Electoral Reforms in Uganda!

It feels deliberate, that Eduardo Kukan dropped a statement on the 8th March 2018 as the General Election in Uganda was in February 2016. That is two years after, this is the Follow-Up Mission to the Electoral Observation Mission, that is long finished and didn’t deliver anything of significance. The whole thing ended up being a charade and mockery of the principals the EU is supposed to stand for. The rigging, the spending and buying votes, the inside deals and pre-ticked ballots should all say that the re-election to a fifth official term and unofficially 7th shouldn’t be legitimized by any entity. This is the same fellas that left Kololo, because the President’s stance on the ICC. Like they didn’t know?

So, we are in March 2018 and its two years and a month since the entered the port and all of the containers are left, all produce is eaten, all parts of the products is sold, stolen or gone. Therefore, there is very little to regard about the process. Very little the EU can do, because they are beholden to the man they validated. They validated the Supreme Court ruling, they validated the Mbabazi petition, they accepted the stolen votes from Besigye and the obvious lies of the Kiggundu Electoral Commission in favor of Museveni.

The EU should have pushed for the reforms in 1995-1996 if they we’re serious. While the President still looked like he cared a little bit and was a donor-friendly guy, now he despise anyone questioning him and his authority. He is always right, and the rest of you is wrong or can be bought. That is President Museveni now. They could have had a short in 2000-2001, even 2005-2006. Even as the term-limits was deposed at the time. When the true reality was that Museveni had no place of really retiring and spend time with his cows. The EU could have pushed for reforms in 2010-2011, even as the Walk to Work demonstrations (W2W) and the Activists 4 Change (A4C) who both challenged the Presidency. Clearly, the EU could have done more as an outside entity, if they cared about the Electoral Reforms.

So now, that the last election went through, the syncopates, the technocrats and cronies of Museveni is elected, appointed as advisors and whatnot. The EU is asking and begging for changes, since suddenly now is the time. Like Museveni would care about the plight of the Follow-Up Mission in 2018, when he just gotten his carrot in December 2017, the Life Presidency. Did the EU miss that charade? Did they sleep in Brussels and eating Belgian waffles? That is how it seems to me.

That the President that has centralized most of the power around him and his State House would now care about the EU, is to say bluntly naive. That the EU comes with recommendations now will not be listened too. Unless, they are dropping bunch of external funds and juicing the rabbit a little bit. Because Museveni is eating, his cronies is too and there is nothing you can tell him.

So when the EU stated this on the 8th of March 2018, its not hard to understand, why it is like this: “ The EU EFM has been heartened to find that the recommendations of the EU EOM have been disseminated across several institutions of State and that many interlocutors were familiar with the content of the recommendations. While there has been virtually no progress on implementation of the recommendations to date, awareness of proposals, and the grounds thereof, is a crucial first step in the achievement of the recommendations. Similarly, there is widespread awareness of the directives of the Supreme Court” (Eduardo Kukan – ‘EU Election Follow-up Mission to Uganda urges Authorities to take positive steps to improve electoral process’ 08.03.2018).

Like did you think the man, that has been running since a coup in 1986 would give in and change to a more democratic structure, the one who house-arrest his biggest threat without any jurisdiction or right by laws? Do you think the man who has all the state coffers, has all the bidders at his feet, will finally give way to your advice? Do you think the man who has used the guns to silence opposition and does it will kind of acronyms too.

I hate to say it to you Kukan, but your late to the party. The party-goers have left, they have their whiskey, their Waragin, their vodka and their Nile Brew, but are not interested in your anecdotes. They would have mattered some time ago, when the fire was burning, when Usher and Radio & Weasel was banging on the stereo. But now, the party has died down, the only left is the straws and the memories of the late night charade.

Kukan, you should have acted swiftly, you should have cared about the implications, but your entity and others validated Museveni. Just like you have done in the past. You let him of the hook and this here, will be a stain, but not something that covers the obvious. The theft of February 2016. That you accepted and did for selfish reasons beyond me.

You could have, you should have, but you never did. Peace.

RDC: PALU & MLC – Communique de Presse (09.03.2018)

RDC: Comite Laic de Coordination – Communique de Presse (07.03.2018)