IDs cannot stop vote rigging - Oguttu

By Moses Walubiri

THE opposition has reacted with cynicism to President Yoweri Museveni’s assertion that issuing national IDs to all bonafide citizens will curb the hydra of vote rigging during subsequent elections, with Wafula Oguttu describing the utterances as “a red herring.”

During national celebrations in Mayuge to mark 28 years since NRM ousted the short-lived Okello Junta yesterday, Museveni averred that issuing IDs will draw a line under all manifestations of vote rigging, especially multiple voting.

However, Oguttu earlier this morning accused the government of laying the ground for rigging the 2016 polls through what he called “issuing IDs to non-citizens.”

Without substantiating his allegations, Wafula said “Rwandese and Sudanese” refugees are in line to receive national IDs “with the connivance of government.”

“IDs are not about to stop the NRM from rigging elections because the Electoral Commission can always be forced to announce doctored results,” Oguttu, who is FDC’s Spokesperson told journalists this morning, citing revelations by Gen. David Sejusa that Dr. Kiiza Besigye was robbed of the 2006 electoral victory.

The reneged former Intelligence Coordinator now in self-imposed exile in UK, recently alleged that Dr. Besigye was robbed of victory in the polls after the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence set up a parallel tally center whose flawed results, instead of those of the EC, were announced, giving Museveni victory.

The EC has since come out to forcefully push back against Sejusa’s claims, underscoring its independence as enshrined under Article 54 of the constitution.
The opposition, has since 2001 polls cried foul over electoral malpractices, attributing their losses to a litany of electoral fraud.

In both 2001 and 2006, the Supreme Court, in response to Dr. Besigye’s election petitions, agreed that electoral malpractices marred both polls, although they were not substantive enough to alter the final results.