
EU accepts invite to observe Feb 2016 polls, signs MoU with GoU. Electoral Observers arrive 28/12.

EU accepts invite to observe Feb 2016 polls, signs MoU with GoU. Electoral Observers arrive 28/12.

Today the 17th December 2015 there was a day when FDC Campaign trail team went to Kabarole and Fort Portal. The Forum for Democratic Change had harmonized their campaign strategy with Electoral Commission which also should be delivered to the Uganda Police Force. This doesn’t seem to matter.
On the 16th Eng. Dr. Badru M. Kiggundu said this:
“If the military is called to come in, I will approve. Yes, the military is part of Uganda; they are your brothers”.
The FDC Campaign Team was staying the night at the Eden lodge. Last night the Police came and entered the room of the delegates of the FDC. The Police went in to take all the campaign material like T-Shirts, Posters, Banners and such. The Kizza Besigye Security detail could not stop that. The day before Crime Preventers together with the Police we’re pinning down the FDC posters.
After this the FDC went into the Police Office and addressed the District Police Commander Musa Tibakirana where the FDC Campaign team we’re able to reclaim the confiscated campaign gear. While the Campaign team was doing so Dr. Kizza Besigye we’re starting campaign in villages.
In Fort Portal town while Dr. Kizza Besigye was still having rallies in the villages. In Fort Portal there was a Military Vehicle H4DF 1187 Military Pickup; there we’re 6 soldiers with a big machine gun.
Later when Dr. Kizza Besigye the NRM men and Crime Preventers scattered from Fort Portal, they had been seen around town all day; later when Dr. Kizza Besigye arrived and made the time blue. The Crime Preventers was not seen.

Dr. Kizza Besigye statement after the rallies:
“Many thanks, to the people of Tooro sub-region for endorsing our candidature, and keeping the message of liberation alive. The spirit and enthusiasm you have exhibited over the past days is what we shall need to win this election. Together we shall liberate our country. Mwebare muno! For God and my Country. One Uganda, One People”.
DPC Tibakirana could have continued his campaign against the FDC even after the Campaign team arrived and picked up the confiscated material. He didn’t. The Electoral Commission has no opened to send the Uganda People’s Defense Force (UPDF) on the defiance campaign. Dr Kiggundu must really fear the power and reach of the Dr. Kizza Besigye. That is why the Police and other security agents of the government of Uganda goes stronger and stronger against the leaders of Opposition. I have a feeling it can get rougher as we have seen in Ntungamo where Go-Forward held a campaign rally. Therefore I now believe that the Police secure the NRM, but chase the rest like their venom. Peace.


“The head of the Private Security of the former Prime minister and Independent candidate, Amama Mbabazi has gone missing. The Go Forward campaign team allege Christopher Aine has been kidnapped” (NTV Uganda, 2015).
“Police in Busia town blocked the campaign rally of Independent Presidential Candidate Professor Venansius Baryamureeba. Baryamureeba had staged his rally at Busia Bus park was ordered to leave the venue by anti riot police commander David Lubanjwa on grounds that he was not supposed to be campaigning in Busia. Baryamureba was expected at the Eastern border district the previous day, Monday” (NTV Uganda, 2015).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHuSiwRLUo8
“Tanga says the NRM losers are wasting time since they will meet the same voters who didn’t give them votes in the primaries” (NBS TV, 2015)

On Saturday and Sunday last week, I joined Dr Kizza Besigye as he campaigned in Mityana and Mubende districts. On Monday, Besigye campaigned in the districts of Kyegegwa and Kyenjojo. He was in Kamwenge yesterday and will today traverse Bundibugyo and Ntoroko. Col Besigye will complete the Tooro sub-region tomorrow and return to Ankole through Rubirizi, up to Bushenyi.
The response in Mityana was overwhelming, but expected. It is Mubende that made a big statement. I travelled in the same vehicle with Kampala lord mayor Erias Lukwago and Lubaga North MP Moses Kasibante. Because of the crowds along the main road, we occasionally stopped to at least greet them.
A senior NRM leader from Mubende later told me that “the MPs may win, but for Mzee, I don’t know”. Mubende has in the past overwhelmingly voted for Museveni, the reason it was nicknamed the Karamoja of Buganda. But this Karamoja of Buganda has significantly changed.
At Busimbi grounds, where we had the main rally, the crowd was as big as has been the case elsewhere, almost bigger than Mukono’s. The enthusiasm, especially among young people, was even more humbling. And there is no better person that illustrated the need for change than Mr Odrek Rwabwogo, husband to one of President Museveni’s daughters. While campaigning for the post of NRM vice chairman in charge of western Uganda, Rwabwogo noted that his father-in-law seized power when Uganda had 10 million people. Last year’s national census put the country’s total population at over 34 million people. This means that at least 24 million people have been born when Museveni is president. And to Rwabwogo, the new generation needed some “fresh air”.
That is what I saw in Mubende. Blue T-shirts bearing the FDC logo and Dr Besigye’s portrait were not being distributed but sold along streets. And of course Besigye continued receiving gifts, especially goats, everywhere he went. There is a gentleman who gave him Shs 400,000 at the Mubende rally. This one did it more dramatically by handing him a Shs 50,000 note at a time as the crowd ululated. The same man again pulled out a bundle of Shs 20,000 notes and started showering lord mayor Lukwago with a note at a time. This was followed by the offering of goats, some draped in Besigye posters.

The NRM leader I mentioned earlier told me “it will be difficult to resist the wave of change this time”.
I am sure Mr Museveni watches and analyses these images daily. He knows his days are numbered. It is the reason he has started attacking media organizations. The crime of NTV and Daily Monitor is to continue broadcasting and printing these images. At FDC, we actually think the media has not reported the full extent of this wave of change, but we are not editors to determine that. The truth is that Besigye has bigger crowds than all the other candidates combined. And these crowds are not ferried, because the FDC and all Besigye supporters don’t have enough resources.

You remember the talk of switching off NTV? Thank God it was a rumour. I have been told other TV proprietors, including those of NBS and WBS, have been summoned by State House and warned. Of course for Daily Monitor, it is routine. When the paper had just started, Museveni always complained against it and its founders were dismissed as Acholis who wanted to remove the new government. All people with names starting with letter O – Obbo, Oguttu, Ogen and Ouma – have since left the Monitor but Museveni’s hatred continues. I will, in a future article, revisit this relationship.

I want to concentrate more on the Sunday violence in Ntungamo. I saw images of young people wearing Museveni campaign T-shirts being battered by candidate Amama Mbabazi’s supporters. And this was also expected. There is no presidential candidate that has suffered at the hands of NRM hooligans like Amama. Television stations showed us NRM youths defacing Amama’s posters in Bushenyi in broad daylight. And Lt Gen Henry Tumukunde flew a Museveni campaign chopper to the venue of Mbabazi’s rally in Fort Portal, moments before his arrival! All these look like actions of a panicky dictator. I was happy when NRM Secretary General Kasule Lumumba condemned these actions and distanced the ruling party from them. But the fact that they have continued is a clear indicator that someone somewhere is encouraging and probably financing them. What the police should have done was to arrest Ronald Kibuule when he lined up NRM youths along Mukono town council streets to provoke Amama.

Again police should have arrested Ntungamo municipality MP Yona Musinguzi who was seen distributing Museveni T-shirts to youths that stormed the venue for a Mbabazi rally. The reason presidential candidates harmonized campaign programmes was to avoid such scenarios. What inspector general of police Kale Kayihura is forgetting is that when you unleash violence, you are actually teaching everybody to be violent. In fact, Amama’s supporters have tolerated this for too long. Instead of protecting a regime that has lost popularity, Gen Kale Kayihura should prepare and begin rehearsing how to lose and hand over power. This is inevitable.

There are a day off action and activity in Uganda today that is out of this world. I am sure the businessmen that Mzee tries to convince of the wealth-creation abilities in his country, surely should be baffled by the state of affairs when he is not there. Mzee surely ordered this because while he is gone… the other candidates, especially the big ones like Dr. Kizza Besigye and Amama Mbabazi has had a harder time campaigning and campaigning well.
This is a statement coming from Amama Mbabazi yesterday:
“Dear Friends. We will be taking a break today to finalize the National campaign task force”. Surely the UPF heard that and let me elaborate on that as well.

IGP Kale Kayihura said this today:
“Today, I am announcing it as IGP that militia moving with Mbabazi will be arrested, it must be dismantled. It was not for those people there would have been no incident I think”.
Today the chairman of the Electoral Commission Eng. Dr. Badru M. Kiggundu has ordered suspensions of the campaign rallies. This happens on a day where Amama Mbabazi and his secretariat at Nakasero in Kampala we’re under siege. There we’re police officers shut down the offices and traffic to it, the people who has set the offices under siege been called for wearing plain clothes and they are there in order to arrest the security personnel of Amama Mbabazi. The Plain ones actually came after the UPF called the uniformed men back. Certain other reports that I can’t verify is that this men was sent by the IGP Kale Kayihura the flying squad or the Special Forces to arrest the men who keeps Amama Mbabazi safe during his campaign and was until the arrest located at the Nakasero office of the The Democratic Alliance and the Go-Forward Secretariat. This can be democratic to do? Would the same forces go the offices of National Resistance Movement and take the men who keep Mzee safe? Wait, they can’t arrest themselves! My bad!

Also the Police picked also up people and equipment from the Amama Mbabazi office in Kololo, not on Nakasero and the TDA office who got under siege today for the former PM. Not easy to opposition in the country today!
If that wasn’t bad enough for Amama Mbabazi has issues with lawful payment for the logo and campaign material to an designer or company owner with the Civil Suit of 1519 who was signed by the Court of Mengo chief magistrate, where the Colin Assimwe sues him for 48M UGX, either stop using the logo’s within 10 days or pay the plaintiff and cost of courtship. That must sting a bit, still not as much as having your offices sieged.

Outside Kampala, a place where Forum for Democratic Change and their Presidential Candidate Dr. Kizza Besigye we’re out keeping his campaign going; in the villages and towns of the country. Today after Dr. Kizza Besigye held a rally in Kawenge Town there was a police presence on the roadside. There been reported up to 40 police officers stopping the Presidential Candidate and ordering him to drive back home to Kampala, or if they know Wakiso district. They we’re planned to travel to Ntala. The Police just kept the blocked road and persistently told the FDC Campaign team to go back to Kampala. They finally let him go, after he talked to the Police men and they let him go so he could ask his supporters forgiveness for not having a campaign as scheduled.

Dr. Kizza Besigye statement after the rallies today:
“Kamwenge today defied intimidation and blackmail, they did not comply to the threats issued to them. They stood firm with us even when Police tried to block us after our last rally at Kamwenge Town Council as we proceeded to Ntara” (…)“Thank you Kamwenge for receiving and hosting us in your district. Hold on and hold tight liberation is at your door and the change we all deserve is coming. #UgandaDecides #WesigeBesigye”
This here proves the hardships that Dr. Kizza Besigye has had for so long and finally Amama Mbabazi is trying out.
This here proof that the Electoral Commission shows that their changes in the Election Roads Map for 2016 as they please, that puts into effect for all the candidates, together with another loyal cronies IGP Kale Kayihura claiming that the Amama Mbabazi is having militias who created the hazard recently in Ntungamo around his rally. That is why Electoral Commission had to write to him and get him to arrest the people behind the madness. Instead of arrest his fellow yellow brethren in the NRM. He has gone gong ho on the organization and vile on random supporters of Amama Mbabazi in Ntungamo. Together with making roadblock cutting the FDC Campaign team and halt their campaigns in the districts of the country. This is all happening while the Mzee is in Saudi Arabia eating kaspa (Chicken and rice) together with their kings and noble men. Which is a far from the reality in Kampala and districts.
This here can only be seen as vile attack on the FDC and Go-Forward campaign teams. There is certain ways to go about it. The Electoral Commission out of the blue suspended their own road map and harmonization of the Campaign between the Presidential Candidates, this in effect lead to partly how IGP Kale Kayihura reacted. He also reacted to the letter sent by the Electoral Commission plea to catch the perpetrators of the hazard caused in Ntungamo. Instead they are going after innocent people and Police Chief Kayihura explains it and justifies it calling certain parts of Amama Mbabazi team militias… Sorry brother your wrong on that your hired Crime Preventers are systemized thuggery for small peas and shillings to dissolve ordinary campaigning and party works. The police is instead showing doing this! Really! Take a look at the picture from Mbale recently!

That is enough violent actions and sudden stupidity in one day. UPF and the EC has been to foolish! Peace.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqvGwBCma3I
“Following the court’s ruling that disregarded Jimmy Akena as UPC Party leader, Otunnu has called a press conference where he announce himself as party president though his term in office has expired.
Otunnu has also pointed accusing fingers at President Museveni and Kale Kayihura. He claims these two are keeping Akena in office by offering protection” (NBS TV, 2015).