Opposition candidates in Kalungu District have complained of the overnight defacing and removal of their campaign posters ahead of a campaign tour by President Museveni, raising concerns over fairness in the run-up to the January 15 General Election.
Museveni, who is seeking re-election to extend his rule to 45 years, is scheduled to campaign in Kalungu and Kalangala districts on Saturday, December 20.
Opposition candidates, including parliamentary contenders, said they woke up on Thursday and Friday to find large numbers of their posters removed from streets and trading centres across the district.
Campaign materials belonging to Kalungu District Woman Member of Parliament Aisha Sekindi, who is also state minister for water and is seeking re-election as an independent, were also affected.
Upon receiving reports of the defacing while campaigning at Kalangala landing site in Bukulula Sub-county, Sekindi broke down in tears, blaming her political opponents.
‘It is clear that candidates whose posters were spared are the ones behind defacing of ours. Those people have done many things to annoy me, but I have remained strong. This is the reason I shunned the party primaries because I had learnt of a plot to rig me out,’ she said.
Sekindi said she was shocked to learn that even a large arch erected by her campaign team in Lukaya Town Council to welcome Museveni had been stripped of her posters and replaced with those of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party flag bearers Vincent Ssempijja and Hellen Nakeeya, who are contesting the Kalungu East parliamentary seat and the district woman MP seat respectively.
‘I am very sure the President’s advance team is already in Kalungu and they are seeing all these injustices done against his minister, but I will not revenge because I have the support of the people,’ she said.
Sulait Ssekitto, a resident of Lukaya Town, alleged that the posters were removed by groups of young men guarded by armed operatives.
‘I was coming from the Mosque and saw them removing the posters and putting them on a white double cabin truck which was guarded by armed men in plain clothes,’ he told Monitor late Friday.
Yusuf Kiruluuta Junior Nkerettanyi, the National Unity Platform (NUP) candidate for the Kalungu East parliamentary seat, said all his giant posters, each costing Shs300,000, placed in Lukaya, Mukoko and Bukulula had been removed and taken to an unknown location.
‘The people defacing our campaign materials and taking others away are causing a huge financial loss to us. They are forgetting that voters love the person not the posters. I request our people to vote for me even when I don’t print new posters,’ he said.
Kalungu Resident District Commissioner Seif Kataabazi said investigations were underway.
‘That matter is already under investigation and the evidence we have so far will enable us arrest all those behind this crime,’ he said.
Under Ugandan law, defacing or destroying campaign posters is a criminal offence punishable by a fine or imprisonment.