Wakiso District tally centre once again exploded into chaos on Wednesday as some of the contestants for divisional council positions accused the returning officer, Mr Tolbert Musinguzi, of reading falsified results.
Tension started when some candidates, especially from the opposition realized their opponents in the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party were reportedly being allocated votes they had not gotten at polling centres, mainly from Nabweru Division.
The complainants also accused Mr Musinguzi of ignoring their pleas to have a look at their Declaration of Results (DR) forms from polling stations to verify the results he was reading.
Ms Immaculate Namanda, the National Unity Platform (NUP) flagbearer in the race for Wamala ward Woman councilor, confronted the returning officer contesting the results he was reading. She said Mr Musinguzi’s results had been inflated in favour of her competitor and the NRM’s Annet Kobusingye, yet she (Namanda) had reportedly garnered more votes at the disputed polling stations.
Subsequently, police and military officers swiftly responded and evacuated her from the tally centre in a scuffle that almost left her undressed.
In a similar incident, Mr Emmanuel Kiyingi, another NUP candidate, contested results of Wamala ward where he vied to represent the people of that area at Nansana Municipality.
He claimed his competitor had since vowed he would be declared the winner regardless of how many votes he got.
“Mr Tolbert (Returning Officer), you are going to cause bloodshed in our villages. When we left there, the communities were celebrating our wins. I had a landslide win,” he said.
Another NUP candidate, Mr Hamuza Kasozi questioned why Mr Musinguzi had ignored their pleas to verify the results he was reading.
“Give us a chance we present our DR forms and our opponents also do the same to observe transparency,” he said, before the returning officer ordered all candidates to first step out of the tally centre and sort themselves out.
“Let’s handle these issues with civility. It’s not my fault because I read the results I have been given,” Mr Musinguzi said.
Similar scenes were witnessed last week during declaration of results for LCV chairperson.
LCV candidate Nasiif Najja compiled figures from DR forms collected by his agents and calculated a lead of about four thousand votes. When the official declaration came, NRM’s Ian Kyeyune was announced the winner, leaving Najja and his supporters questioning the process.