Minister Opendi, Omala clash at tallying center

Chaos broke out at Tororo elections result tally centre on Friday after the minister of state for primary health Sarah Achieng Opendi and her supporters clashed with police commissioner Sam Omalla. 

Omala the commander of Field Force Unit (FFU) in charge of Bukedi was confronted by the minister and her supporters who accused him of openly siding with Tanga Odoi, the NRM electoral commission chairman to manipulate results in favour of her opponent. 

Omala was allegedly overheard by the minister whispering to Opendi's opponent Ayo Jacinta of NRM telling her that he had received orders to compel the district registrar Fredrick Muwaya Tibakuno to declare results in Ayo's favour. 

This enraged Opendi and her supporters who attacked Omala before the latter ordered for soldiers and police to disperse them but the irate supporters refused to budge. 

"Which kind of police officer are you who takes political sides, the other time you played a role to rig me off my victory during the party primaries and this time round we are more than ready. Your actions have contributed to the president's unpopularity in this district" the minister fumed. 

The two engaged in a verbal joust and it took the district internal security officer to separate them before the situation turned ugly. She wondered why Omala was always seated at the tally table. 

Opendi accused Omala of acting on orders of Tanga Odoi, this after the Electoral Commission delayed to declare the results by 7pm on Friday, 27 hours after the polls were closed on Thursday. 

Tanga had earlier clashed with supporters of Jacob Oboth Oboth the West Budama South parliamentary candidate when he arrived at the tally centre in a company of Omala saying the activity at the centre was not related to NRM at all.  

Subsequently Oboth's results were immediately declared in where he emerged winner after beating NRM's Phibby Otaala. Oboth got 20,653 against Otaala's 19,462. 

Both Opendi's and Oboth supporters said they were ready to defend their votes. 

She was then declared winner at around 5.00am on Saturday morning after getting 61,800 votes against Ayo's 59,790 votes. 

"My victory is against Tanga and not Ayo, we learnt lessons from what Tanga and Omala did to Sanjay Tanna's votes and we prepared for it and that's why they couldn't beat our readiness" said Opendi. 

The returning officer Fredrick Muwaya Tibakuno said he was in Tororo doing a national duty and not for particular personalities. 

He assured candidates and their supporters that results he released depended on genuine votes each candidate got after tallying. 

Muwaya appealed to all the candidates to use their agents' declaration form to carry their own independent tallying and compare with the results the commission has come out with to avoid any kind of misunderstanding.