Opendi protests loss on account of partial results
Oct 06, 2020
Opendi said she will not be robbed of her victory like in the previous elections (2011 and 2016), when she was forced to stand as an independent.
POLITICS|ELECTIONS|NRM PRIMARIES|MINISTER
TORORO - State minister for minerals, Sarah Achieng Opendi, has protested the declaration of her rival as the National Resistance Movement (NRM) party flag-bearer for the Tororo Woman MP seat.
Opendi said declaring Jacinta Ayo as the winner of last month's elections indicates that the party electoral officials considered only results from West Budama county.
She said if they were to consider results from both West Budama and Tororo counties, which should be the case, she beat Ayo.
Ayo was on Friday evening declared the winner, without results from Tororo county.
Tororo has two parallel party offices, the district office (West Budama) located on Market Street and managed by Joseph Kadoketch. The district branch (Tororo county) is on Mbale Road and is managed by Joe Joseph Oburu, the registrar.
The two offices are supposed to merge the results for district Woman MP and LC5 chairperson to come up with the winner.
According to the results declared by the district office, Ayo garnered 54,157 votes, while Opendi polled 26,528. Those from the district branch office saw Opendi declared winner after securing 43,468 votes against Ayo's 2,573, which translates to 56,730 votes for Ayo and 69,996 for Opendi.
Joined by her supporters on Saturday morning, Opendi said she will not be robbed of her victory like in the previous elections (2011 and 2016), when she was forced to stand as an independent.
Tanga Odoi accused
She accused NRM electoral commission chairperson Dr Tanga Odoi and other party officials of manipulation and delays to announce the results in favour of Ayo.
She petitioned the party chairperson, President Yoweri Museveni, who directed John Arimpa Kigyagi, the party electoral commission vice-chairperson in charge of the eastern region, to carry out investigations.
During a meeting with party leaders on September 15, Kigyagi apologised for the delay in announcing the poll's outcome but promised to announce the results without any manipulations.