In his first statement after the Court dismissed his petition, Besigye warned that his petition is likely to be the very last Presidential Elections petition that the Supreme Court judges will ever preside over.

He may be facing treason charges, but Forum for Democratic Change leader, Col. (Rtd) Dr. Kizza Besigye has warned of possible use of violence following a Supreme Court ruling on the petition he filed challenging the February 23 presidential polls.

The High Court begun this week to hear the case in which Besigye and 22 others are accused of treason and concealment of treason, the charge they deny. The government alleges that after losing the presidential election and petition in 2001, Besigye started a rebel group.

In his first statement after the Court dismissed his petition, Besigye warned that his petition is likely to be the very last Presidential Elections petition that the Supreme Court judges will ever preside over.

“For this, history will hold their Lordships responsible because subsequent petitions are likely to be addressed to courts similar to the one in which President Museveni found confidence in 1981,” he said.

President Yoweri Museveni came to power in 1986 through a guerilla struggle that started following the fraud in the 1980 presidential elections in which the Democratic Party is said have won but the ruling Uganda People’s Congress at the time turned the result upside down.

Besigye said today, that all that has been achieved in over 20 years will be lost. “The long and short of this election, petition and judgement is that Uganda is right back to square one, after 25 years,” he said. The FDC leader said that there is no doubt that this judgement has re-enforced the already strong sense of apathy and despondency in the electoral and petition processes.

He said that the FDC Party adduced enough evidence in court to prove that the election was not conducted in accordance with the law, and that it was not free and fair. “It is unfortunate that their Lordships have once again not found it fitting to cancel the election that is glaringly invalid and certainly not free and fair, as required by the constitution.”

The FDC leader noted that the Constitution and legal framework are not only grossly unfair to the petitioner but favor perpetrators of electoral malpractices. “The petitioner has only ten days to prepare and lodge the petition compared with the Parliamentary Elections where the petitioner has 30 days within which to lodge a petition,” he said.

He said that in addition to the Presidential Elections Act being so grossly tilted in favor of the electoral offenders as demonstrated above, intimidation and harassment of petitioner’s lawyers and witnesses, especially upcountry had a significant impact on the final judgement.

Besigye however said that as a petitioner and as FDC, which sponsored his candidature, they are satisfied that they did what they had to do.

“We performed our duty as responsible citizens of this country. We exposed irregularities, electoral malpractices and offences; we exposed the constitutional and legal impediments to free and fair elections, we provided another opportunity to the Supreme Court to influence the tortuous democratization process in Uganda;” he said.

He said that the party is disappointed by the Supreme Court’s decision that the election which is not free and fair as required by Article One of the Constitution; one that was not conducted in accordance with the law or the principles laid down in the law can be allowed to stand.

“We shall therefore, not associate ourselves with or respect this decision. This decision clearly contradicts the very essence of our constitutional order; by in particular contradicting the spirit and letter of the constitution’s first Article,” said.

As a way forward, Besigye said that his party shall vigorously fight the unfair and undemocratic political dispensation in Uganda until the essential reforms are achieved as well as organize FDC right from the grassroots, to continue to grow and become a formidable party.

“We shall vigorously mobilize all Ugandans to channel the popular discontent towards action that will weaken and dislodge the dictatorship, through all legitimate means available. We shall be calling for boycotts, peaceful demonstrations and other political and legal actions. We shall show our people how to fight for their rights in a way that black mambas and tear gas can’t harm them,” he said in a statement.

He said that since the Court also expressed grave concerns regarding the involvement of the security forces in elections, intimidation, violence ad partisan harassment; massive disenfranchisement of voters; partisan conduct of electoral officials and lack of voter education, president Museveni’s government is illegitimate.

“The election of President Museveni is illegitimate and he can only form am illegitimate government. Even at this late hour, President Museveni can still redeem himself by stepping down and allowing our country a chance to have a legitimate government,” he advised.

He said that President Museveni should look around the world and see that there is no more room for impunity and that every dictator eventually faces his day of reckoning. “They should look and see the Charles Taylors, Slobodan Milosovechs and Saddam Husseins of this world,” he said in a five page statement.

Why every Ugandan should pay attention. What is next after the Supreme Court ruling on Besigye’s petition?

The major elections are over in Uganda and the poll fever is still on. On February 23, Ugandans elected their President and Members of Parliament in the country’s first ever-multiparty elections after 26 years under the individual merit movement system.

Ugandans continued to vote, this time for their Local Council Five Chairpersons and Councilors at those councils, Municipal Mayor and lately local council 3 chairpersons that ended on Friday.

This is a new trend in Uganda’s history since the last multiparty elections in 1980 that were contested by among others, President Yoweri Museveni. The elections for 1985 could not take place because of the rebellion in the country that later brought President Museveni to power in February 1986. Ever since, Uganda has had only two general elections, in 1996 and 2001, all of which have been held under the Movement system where one contests as an individual since all political parties had been banned. The parties are now back and the hot talk during political debates is party politics or first multiparty politics in the country.

The International media and the entire international community has blown it further, as ‘Uganda’s first Multiparty elections since President Yoweri Museveni came to power in 1986’. But a closer look at what is going on in Uganda portrays a contrary picture to what is being talked about to the extent that one can say that the ongoing election is neither based on the Movement nor the multiparty setting.

Nature of campaigns:
The word tubejeeko (let us leave them go) must still be fresh in the minds of Ugandans and could have been responsible for this trend. During the campaigns in the referendum that led to the ‘opening up of political space’, President Yoweri Museveni told Ugandans that the referendum was meant to allow those who did not believe in the Movement system to leave. He should have told them that he had also formed the NRM. He continued during the Presidential campaigns by referring to the FDC as a bunch of people who were chased from the NRM.

To some people, it still looks like we are still under the movement system and the word political party is far from their ears.

As though he was still trying to reform the movement, as was his campaign slogan, Dr. Besigye told the opposition to stop looking at each other as Democratic Party, Uganda Peoples Congress, Conservative Party or Forum for Democratic Change but as a combined force to oust president Museveni.

This in a way played to Besigye’s advantage, as some people did not look at him as the FDC candidate but a credible challenger to President Yoweri Museveni who would be voted for by all people who needed change. Indeed, his party’s ‘One Uganda, One people’ slogan was overshadowed by the agende (he [Museveni] must go) slogan.

Nature of candidates in the elections:
In the February 23rd polls, four political parties fielded candidates for presidency and one candidate, Dr. Abed Bwanika stood on individual merit as was the case under the Movement system.

Others including President Yoweri Museveni of the National Resistance Movement, Dr. Kizza Besigye of the Forum for Democratic Change, Ssebaana Kizito of the Democratic Party and Miria Kalule Obote of the Uganda People’s Congress respectively stood on the ticket of their respective political parties.

At Parliamentary level, there were more independents than the total number of opposition candidates combined and the same is happening in lower local council elections where independents are also winning the polls.

What is more interesting and surprising is that people who were at the helm of advocating for political pluralism were among those that turned around and stood on individual merit, the method they had been fighting as the proponents of the Movement system. Others, including President Museveni, stood on their party tickets.

For example Uganda Peoples Congress iron lady, Cecilia Ogwal and other UPC leaders like Ben Wacha (Kwania), Okullo Epak (Oyam South), Betty Amongi (Apac women), Charles Angiro (Erute) stood as independents. Ogwal lost to her fellow UPC member, Joseph Akena, a son to former Uganda President, Milton Obote.

At the local level, there were also more independents than the total number of opposition candidates combined and more than half the number of NRM candidates. Statistics from the Electoral Commission indicated that independent candidates for LC V chairmen were 62 more than the opposition candidates combined who made 40.

Voting pattern at all levels:
One would expect that being sponsored by the party gives them a big muscle to get more votes, but this is not the fact according to the ongoing polls which offer signs of ‘individual meritism’.

Take an example of Kampala City where the new Mayor Elect, Hajji Nasser Ssebaggala and his close challengers, Peter Sematimba both standing as independents beat party sponsored candidates by getting 53 percent and 40.4 percent respectively.

Hajji Hasib Takuba, the DP candidate who refused to step down for Ssebaggala, NRM sponsored candidate, Wilson Kyambadde and independents Naiga Sserwanga and Senseko Kulubya got 3.1 percent, 2.6 percent, 0.3 and 0.6 respectively.

This is almost the same scenario when it comes to the Presidential elections, especially in northern Uganda, where many voters cast their vote to the main opposition leader and FDC President, Dr. Kizza Besigye for Presidency and voted for other party candidates in other polls.

In Lira Municipality, for example, voters overwhelmingly cast their vote for Joseph Akena, a UPC candidate for Parliament and Dr. Kizza Besigye, an FDC Candidate for Presidency. This was in spite of the fact that UPC also had Miria Kalule Obote, a mother to Akena in the Presidential race against Besigye, President Museveni, Ssebaana Kizito and Abedi Bwanika.

Also, as was the case with the Mayoral elections, independent, Abedi Bwanika beat Kalule Obote, a candidate of a party that once ruled Uganda, by polling by 0.95 against 0.82 percent. This trend did not get many candidates unaware as some exploited it to get votes by being behind popular people in their areas other than their political parties.

You will recall that known DP officials like Kawempe South MP-elect, Sebuliba Mutumba, Kawempe north MP-elect, Latif Ssebagala and Kampala Mayor-elect, Nasser Ssebagala were behind Dr. Besigye and not Ssebaana Kizito.

Love for individual merit:
Uganda may have gone into party politics, but many Ugandans still enjoyed the individual merit system. In fact some people will tell you that if it were not the corruption in the NRM and the abuse of the movement system by the same people who started it, they would have preferred to stay in the individual merit system.

One of such people is former Ethics and Integrity Minister and Mbarara Municipality Woman MP, Miria Matembe who was widely known to be from the FDC but decided to stand as an independent.

Matembe, who fell out with President Museveni over his demand for the third term in power, says that she preferred to stand as an independent because she didn’t want to divide her constituency-the women. She however lost in the polls after the campaign against her, by especially the Land and Environment Minister, Kahinda Otafiire.

The Secretary for International Relations at the FDC, Reagan Okumu says that there were many people who were like Matembe- especially in the western party of the country. Okumu says that many people decided to stand as independents for fear of intimidation from government agents.

So, what kind of electoral system are we practically operating in? A Movement system, multiparty system or hybrid political system?

Ugandans went to the polls on Thursday February 23rd to elect a president who will lead the country for the next five years, after more than two months of rigorous campaigns.

The Electoral Commission has declared incumbent President Gen. Yoweri Museveni as the winner with 59.28% of the votes cast. His closest challenge was from Col. Dr. Kizza Besigye who amassed 37.36% of the votes cast, leaving the other three candidates to share less than 4% of the votes cast.

Yet some people are saying independent candidate Abed Bwanika who managed only 0.95% of the votes is the real winner of this 2006 election. Why and how, you must be asking.

True the majority of Ugandans voted Yoweri Museveni or Kizza Besigye but many were silently wishing they voted for Bwanika, 38, who has exhibited confidence and consistency in his spirited bid to occupy State House for the next five years.

Bwanika is arguably a darling of the majority of Ugandans in this time because he is undoubtedly the ideal candidate many Ugandans would have liked to vote for and have as a leader of the country but historical factors did not allow many Ugandans that choice.

Many Ugandans voted Museveni because he is a man they have known as President for the last 20 years, a man with considerable achievements after the turbulent 1970s and early 80s; a confident man that they believe is better to trust to be at the helm of determining the affairs of the country under a multi-party system of governance.

On the other hand, many other Ugandans voted for Dr. Kizza Besigye in order to get Museveni out of Office, whom many accuse for economic and political mismanagement of the country, saying political parties are bad and gagging them for 20 years only to amend the constitution and return to seek a new mandate as a party (NRM-O) candidate.

The stringent rivalry if not conflict between these two leading candidates has reminded many Ugandans of the short distance the country may have moved in the direction of appreciating divergent political opinion. The two candidates are so against each other even to what some have called personal levels and have transferred the same conflict and hatred to the majority of their respective supporters.

This is why there has been widespread violence and more violence is expected, as all the two camps seem to believe they must either win or the other party looses. Dr. Besigye’s FDC has refused to accept the results declared by the Electoral Commission saying President Museveni scored less that the required 50% according to their own vote tally.

It is this kind of situation that is forcing many more sober Ugandans to assert that Bwanika, a man for whom no one has anger against and a man who has elicited no anger against other candidates, is therefore the best candidate for a country looking for further healing from a violent and divisive past.

“Abed Bwanika is the real winner in this election. He has maintained a middle ground. Unlike other candidates who have been trading insults at each other, he has discussed issues on all his campaign rallies, telling people what he would like to do for Uganda in the next five years. This is the candidate many of us would like to lead Uganda,” says Hilda Mukisa of Makerere University.

Many people have described Bwanika as a brilliant and good candidate who was on Thursday not voted into the Presidential office because many Ugandans do not want to see their man, Museveni being defeated in an election, and an almost equal number of Ugandans are prepared to do all they can to see long serving Museveni out of power. It is only Dr. Besigye who has proved a real threat to the domineering Museveni in all of his 20 years at the helm of the country.

“Four presidential candidates combined do not measure up to Dr. Abed Bwanika. If whatever we say is what we do, Dr. Bwanika is the man. It is time Ugandans voted wisely, not voting for someone because he is an incumbent, a soldier, rich or a party leader. I didn’t think Bwanika will win, but my vote didnt go with the wind. It went where integrity lies, to Bwanika,” says Jonathan Akweteireho of Kampala.

While Ugandans are almost equally divided over whether the February 23rd 2006 elections will be free and fair according to opinion polls, opposition political parties are taking no chances and have asked for their representatives to be allowed into the vote tallying room, a request highly criticized by the Electoral Commission and government.

The Electoral Commission announced recently that Mandela International Stadium, Namboole will be the national tallying center and invited representatives of political parties to be present there beginning Friday February 24th when vote counting begins.

The Electoral Commission Chairman, Engineer Dr. Badru Kiggundu has sternly told the nation that only Electoral Commission Officials will be allowed in the tallying room to allow efficiency and avoid interference with the vote tallying process.

But opposition political parties have asked for their representatives to be allowed inside the votes tallying room as a way of promoting transparency by the election governing body which has had to make a lot of hard decisions in organizing the countrys first multi-party polls in more than 25years. Decisions like allowing the main opposition leader (Dr. Kizza Besigye) who was in prison by nomination day to get nominated.

The EC is being hounded and criticized by most members of the opposition for being partial in favour of government (and Candidate/President Yoweri Museveni who appointed them), while the government has on many occasions accused the Electoral Commission of favouring the opposition and siding with donors and being anti-government.

The Chairperson of the Human Rights Network, Jesca Nkuhe says party representatives should be allowed into tallying rooms because there are precedents to show that votes can be tampered with in tallying rooms.

Elections can be rigged right from the grassroots to the Electoral commission. Many times results declared at the Electoral Commission are different from those declared at polling stations and it may be late or ineffective to petition. We want party representatives allowed in the tally room. We want maximum transparency and accountability, she told Journalists on Friday.

There is no need for parties to be represented in the vote tally room because all parties have been allowed up to two representatives at each polling station countrywide. Each party can tally their own votes. Lets leave the vote tally room to the Electoral Commissions technical people who have been trained to do the job, says Simon Kigozi who is on NRM-Os Election Task Force.

Kigozi says unlike in 1980 elections where voting was taking place in a dark room, this election is being held in broad day light. Even the ballot boxes are transparent, he says.

However, Democratic Partys Ambrose Bukenya says fairness from the Electoral Commission can be expected if all political parties participated in the appointment of the Electoral Commission. We dont expect fairness from a government elected commission. You can understand our worries that something may happen, he says.

The Electoral Commission has however come in strongly to assure Ugandans that the elections will be free of partial tampering at any level.

Results will be tallied at each polling station and declared there and then. So no one should worry since all political parties are represented at each poling station. There are also poll observers. From the polling station, the results will be taken to the Sub-county, then to the District from where they will be forwarded to the national polling centre at Nambole, says Electoral Commission Spokesman, Okello Jabweli.

Other than presence in the tallying room, The EC recently announced a ban on the congregation of groups of more than 12 people at polling stations on polling days.

The EC issued that guideline to target paramilitary groups, the so-called militia trained by various political organisations (youth brigades) to purportedly guard the vote by keeping vigil at polling stations, a move hailed by many political observers.

The Democratic Party, the Forum for Democratic Change parties, and the National Resistance Movement-Organisation have militia youth wings, and have been accused of failure to enforce discipline in their ranks. Both presidential candidates (especially NRM-Os Museveni and FDCs Besigye) have been urging their supporters to stay at polling stations until vote counting is done.

But in the same tone, many political commentators have appealed to EC not to use any law to stop citizens from guarding their votes since the law allows people to remain at polling stations after they have cast their vote or merely as onlookers.

But Electoral Commission Spokesman, Okello Jabweli says the law allows people who have finished casting their vote to stay at least 100 meters away from the polling station to avoid congestion and allow other people a chance to peacefully cast their votes.

Some people have however expressed concern that the EC’s recent decree that people don’t congregate within 100 metres of a polling station are not anywhere within the law and are bound to either create a pretext for rigging or be quoted as inadvertent activities around elections that could be construed as instruments of rigging.

Standing 100 metres away from a polling booth, that is the length of a standard football field away, is tantamount to not guarding the votes. Security organisations, and others, mandated to guard polling stations could abuse or exploit the guidelines to enhance impure agendas, says Peter Mwesige, Executive Editor of the Daily Monitor.

This will add to opposition claims that the political ground is not level, fearing Museveni who has been around as President for two decades knows his way around many things and people and can sway the vote even in the vote tallying room.