By Mulengera Reporters
The officials of FDC, which is the only opposition party that afforded fielding a candidate in the Thursday by lections to fill the vacant position of Nebbi LC5 Chairman, must have left the town very cold and frustrated. Why? Their candidate Onyai Vick Emmanuel (in whose support a huge crowd came out to meet his party leader Kizza Besigye days earlier) finished in a distant 3rd position badly trailing behind NRM’s Emmanuel Urombi and Independent George Othuba.
Ill-fated Onyai polled just 4,022 votes against Urombi’s 22,280 and Othuba’s 18,323. According Micheal Arinaitwe who was the Returning Officer, a total of 46,536 (out of over 120,000 eligible voters) cast their votes of which 94 were invalid/spoilt votes. The poll was meant to replace William Esrom Alenyo who died in a motor accident September last year.
Crisp Kaheru, the CCEDU national coordinator who led the Election Observation Mission in Nebbi, commended the security forces for the professionalism and restraint they exhibited through the electoral process. Reflecting on the low voter turn up, Kaheru also said this was indicative of how urgently the state must act to enact electoral reforms as one way to restore public trust and confidence in polling processes.
He believes this apathy (seen in less than 50% of the voters turning up to vote) is attributable to the fact that the number of people believing in elections is dwindling every passing day.
For Moses Bigirwa, a self-professed General of People Power, the Nebbi results is a wakeup call to the FDC party to realize that potent as they consider themselves to be, they can’t always go it alone against the NRM especially in electoral areas that are hundreds of miles away from Kampala.
Bigirwa, whose DP Bloc continues to be accused of focusing on just Kampala and Wakiso which are already under firm control of the opposition, says the involvement of Bobi Wine Kyagulanyi Sentamu would have created additional momentum improving electoral performance of their candidate but the FDC party acted proudly saying they didn’t require the Kyagulanyi magic in Nebbi.
Bigirwa says this utterance was made by “FDC radicals” whom he doesn’t name in social media rant posted today Friday morning. The FDC diehards have been quick to rebut the Bigirwa rant by arguing that as an opposition figure with a duty to diminish the NRM influence, Mr. Wine didn’t have to support the FDC candidate. They argue he was free and should have fielded his own candidate under the People Power Movement meaning Gen Bigirwa’s argument is merely escapist and doesn’t carry much water. (For comments, call, text or whatsapp us on 0703164755 or email us at mulengea2040@gmail.com).
