NAIROBI
At least seven people have been shot dead in election violence across Uganda, news agencies reported on Wednesday.
Violence erupted in a village near the eastern town of Mbale after a bodyguard of candidate Simon Mulongo allegedly shot and killed five opposition supporters, the semi-official ‘New Vision’ daily said. The newspaper reported that an angry mob then disarmed Mulongo’s bodyguard before killing him. “At least six people are dead, and eight are injured and are in Mbale hospital,” Reuters quoted police spokesman Eric Naigambi as saying. Voters in the village had accused Mulongo and his entourage of handing out bribes to buy support.
In a separate incident in the south-central town of Mityana, the minister of state for gender, youth and culture, Vincent Nyanzi, was arrested after his bodyguard shot and injured a supporter of his rival for the town’s parliamentary seat. According to the ‘New Vision’, Nyanzi was one of 150 people taken into custody across the country for alleged election malpractice and violence. Meanwhile, in the western district of Hoima, the chief administrative officer, Patrick Mwesigwa, was arrested for allegedly using soldiers and police to force electors to vote for his preferred candidate for the Buhaguzi seat, the newspaper said.
The violence marred a generally peaceful day of polling across the country, in which voter turnout was thought to be low - lower than the 60 to 70 percent seen in March’s presidential elections, Reuters said. “There is no enthusiasm. The turnout is very low compared to last time. I think people are weary of elections,” Lawrence Mukasa, an election official in Mukono, 20 km east of Kampala was quoted as saying by Associated Press.
At stake in Tuesday’s polls were the 214 seats in the National Parliament for directly elected MPs. A further 81 seats have already been filled by district women MPs, and the indirectly elected representatives of the army, youth and trade unions.
The elections are widely expected to endorse President Yoweri Museveni’s 15-year “Movement” system of government, against opposition from pro-multiparty candidates. Under the no-party “Movement” system, political parties are not allowed to take part in elections, and MPs are officially elected as independents. In reality, however, everyone knows whether a candidate is for or against the president and his National Resistance Movement (NRM), the BBC said.
According to the BBC, during the parliamentary campaign, Museveni has been behaving increasingly as if the NRM is a political party. The independent monitoring body, NGO Election Monitoring Group, was quoted by the BBC as saying that Museveni had been violating the law by vetting candidates, and then campaigning on their behalf. The organisation had appealed to Uganda’s Electoral Commission to take action, but up until campaigns closed on Sunday, Museveni had continued to back candidates of his choice, the BBC said.
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