Massive fraud reported in western Uganda, race still close

There has been massive fraud in western Uganda, with money becoming a decisive factor.

In Ankole especially, it was a case of pay-per-vote. People with voters' cards were being given money to cast votes, with sums like 3,000 shs. changing hands.

Some of the results seemed hard to explain.

In places like Nakasongola, Rakai, and Sembabule where the area is large but sparsely populated, there were reports of numbers as high as 400 or 500 voting at polling stations.

This could not be possible, to those who know the areas, where the population distribution is one family surrounded by kilometers of land and hills.

However, the picture is becoming clearer as Uganda enter the early morning hours of Friday February 24.

The Ugandan presidential race is much closer than the ruling National Resistance Movement had expected.

By 1:30 a.m. Friday February 24 (22:30 GMT, Thursday), President Museveni was at 49 percent and Besigye at 47 percent.

In a normal democracy this would mean nothing because a win is a win.

But in the NRM-ruled Uganda, that could trigger off a crisis, with angry calls for explanations as to why the result went as it did, when the NRM and its candidate President Yoweri Museveni were predicting a landslide.

If the result remains as it is, hovering around 49 to 50 percent for Museveni and 46 to 47 percent for Besigye, the calls for investigating allegations of rigging, voters finding their names missing from the register, will grow loud.

If Museveni's lead should drop below 50 percent in the final tally, then Uganda will be in for interesting times.

All this hinges on whether Museveni can accept a victory over Besigye that is so slight that, given the bitterness of their relationship, it is tantamount to a loss.

Any win for Museveni in which single digit results separate him from Besigye will lead us back to the Radio Katwe analysis of his mind and reactions.

In a crazy gamble, Museveni could order his men to find a way of artificially inflating his win to something in the range of what Radio Katwe predicted, 63 percent.

That will spark the crisis that everyone has been waiting for. Much of the population in central Uganda tuned in on Thursday night to KFM (or Monitor FM) to listen to the results being systematically announced and tallied.

The public, therefore, is being prepared for a very close race by African standards.

By the time the Electoral Commission announces the official results on Saturday, the public will have spent more than a day thinking of 49-47 percent, 50-46 percent, 51-48 percent, 48-46 percent.

As the earlier article showed, the number of ballots that were spoilt or invalid was one of the biggest surprises of the election and its ended the long-standing myth that Ugandas' rural population is uninformed, unsophisticated, and easy to manipulate.

The NRM will be forced to think about what to do with that expectation and nationwide alertness.

Will Museveni come to terms with a win over Besigye that is as good as a draw? Very doubtful. But then, if the public has shown itself so alert, how can a 63 percent victory be declared without causing chaos?

Museveni cannot deal with such a slight win over Besigye, after investing so much effort, cunning, money, military might, the General Court Martial, and the state machinery trying to frustrate Besigye.

In real political terms, it is a terrible defeat for Museveni and his reaction to that is what is worth watching.

More updates later.