By Aggrey Baba
Makindye East MP–elect Ali Kasirye Nganda Mulyanyama has painted a picture of the January 15, 2026 parliamentary elections, describing them as a contest where rules were bent, ballots were stuffed, and winners were, in many cases, manufactured at the tally centres rather than chosen by the voters.
Speaking during a morning appearance on Sanyuka TV, Mulyanyama said the scale of rigging witnessed in the recent elections makes meaningful electoral reform nearly impossible under the current regime.
His remarks were prompted by a caller who urged him to prioritize [once he starts legislating] tabling a private member’s bill that would impose harsh criminal penalties on election riggers, instead of the current practice where courts often only order by-elections or award costs.
The outgoing Makindye Division Mayor responded, saying that while such a law would be desirable, passing it would be like asking those who benefit from the problem to vote themselves out of comfort. The NRM, according to Mulyanyama, commands a majority in Parliament, yet many of its MPs, in his view, arrived there through the very practices such a law would seek to punish.
In his telling, Parliament is now a house built with bricks baked in illegality, making it unrealistic to expect its occupants to set fire to their own shelter.
Mulyanyama defended his doubts, citing what he witnessed at the Kololo Independence Grounds tally centre, where parliamentary results for Kampala were declared, describing the atmosphere as tense and emotionally draining, saying he nearly shed tears when Nakawa East results were announced in favour of NRM’s Michael Ruhindi.
According to Mulyanyama, the declared results did not match the reality on the ground, especially when compared to the votes garnered by incarcerated National Unity Platform (NUP) deputy spokesperson Alex Waiswa Mufumbiro. To him, Kololo was not just a tally centre, but a theatre where numbers were rehearsed and altered before being read to the public.
He went on to describe Kololo as place where declaration forms were more valuable than money (the hottest cake), hunted down by the yellow foot soldiers, determined to control the final results. Many opposition (especially NUP) candidates, he said, lost their forms through theft or force, making it easier for altered figures to be announced with the help of compromized EC officials.
This is evidenced by one visible incident which involved Kawempe South NUP candidate Fred Nyanzi and his agents, who were forcibly dragged by security personnel and NRM supporters as they protested results read by a returning officer in favor of NRM’s Madina Nsereko. The figures, they argued, were different from those captured on their official declaration forms.
Mulyanyama said his own survival at Kololo was result of what he called “ghetto intelligence, saying that anticipating that his declaration forms would be targeted, he devised a solution.
Mulyanyama said he arrived at Kololo with a file placed openly on the back seat of his car, containing declaration forms from the 2021 elections when he won the Makindye mayoral seat. He further revealed that as expected, the file was taken, but the real 2026 declaration forms safe.
Instead, he said, they were hidden on his body, scattered under his clothes, with some concealed in the most unlikely of places to ensure they could not be grabbed. When the returning officer began reading results that did not tally with what he had, Mulyanyama said he calmly pulled out the genuine forms one by one.
Mulyanyama also took time to defend his record and credentials, dismissed claims questioning his academic qualifications. He said such challenges (including attempts to annul his nomination before polling day) were driven by fear, not facts. Those who doubted him, he said, were simply uncomfortable with the prospect of losing to him.
The newly elected MP also described himself as a doer rather than a mere talker, pointing to what the visible transformation in Makindye Division during his tenure as mayor. Roads, service delivery and general organization, he said, look markedly different from how they were five (5) years ago. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
