Candidates dispute Vision poll

By John Kakande and Geoffrey Kamali PRESIDENTIAL candidates Col. Kizza Besigye and Francis Bwengye have disputed a New Vision opinion poll which said President Museveni would win the polls in the first round with at least 54%. Besigye campaign task force in a statement yesterday said the opinion poll was meant to discourage their supporters and to promote the incumbent, Museveni. But Museveni's task force in turn said the poll underestimated the popularity of their candidate. "Whereas we agree with the trend of the poll, it has greatly been underestimated. Our candidate will win the same number of votes as in 1996," said Ofwono Opondo, deputy publicity chief for Museveni's national task force. "The country wants change and we believe that Dr Besigye's bid has the greatest momentum to raise the figure to over the required 51% and achieve that change," Besigye's campaign co-ordinator Louis Otika said in the statement. "It is important to note that Col. Dr Kizza Besigye, who has been muzzled by the Commander-in-Chief for over ten years and only announced his bid in October 2000, has in just over two months rallied support and he has the fastest growth of supporters at the moment," the statement added. Otika also said, "We have no reason to believe that President Museveni has not influenced this opinion poll or any future poll." They said respondents in the north were intimidated and their responses influenced in favour of Museveni. Candidate Aggrey Awori's aide Dennis Lukaaya said the opinion poll was "intended to cause unfair excitement." He said the poll did not reflect reality on the ground because it was conducted before nominations and start of campaigns. Candidate Francis Bwengye said the poll "was biased and intended to promote one candidate - Yoweri Museveni." "Let's go into the field and see. I have support in every part of the country," he said. He wondered how he could score worse than candidates without a national structure. Bwengye accused The New Vision of bias and of creating a false impression that he was merging with Awori. "I have not talked about merger," he said. He said he simply wanted joint rallies with Awori Ofwono Opondo said, "We expect our candidate to win overwhelmingly in the first round with between 64% and 85%." Ends