We have just witnessed what must be the most fraudulent electoral process in Uganda. We participated in this process to highlight and show the world quite how fraudulent this military regime is. The Electoral Commission is not independent and its technical incompetence and partisanship has been made clear for all to see. The voting material was not delivered in time. People were unlawfully removed from the Voters’ Register whilst ghosts were wantonly added. Freedoms of assembly and expression were wantonly curbed. We were not free to carry out our campaigns without intimidation and interference from the partisan Uganda Police Force and the NRM’s militia dubbed the Crime Preventers.
On election day, all access to social media platforms was switched off. This can only have been designed to impede transparency of the election. The popular mobile money platforms were also disabled, cutting millions of ordinary people off form their meager resources. This can only be described as illegal collective punishment, which is an offense under international law.
Then after the elections as the Electoral Commission started announcing falsified results when we called a press conference to show the world how the results that we had, results that were announced at polling stations in the presence of citizens and our own polling agents, the Uganda Police Force brutally stormed our offices and arrested the Party President, Maj. General Mugisha Muntu, our Chief Mobiliser, Ms. Ingrid Turinawe, and myself. We were detained without charge at Naggalama Police Station and whilst General Muntu and I were released late in the night, Ms. Turinawe was detained overnight.
Today I am under house arrest. My home is sealed off and I am not allowed to leave. Nobody is allowed to access my home. I am also under some kind of electronic blockade. I am unable to access any form of internet service in my house.
Generally, the regime is baring its bloodied fangs and claws for all to see. This has not been an electoral process. This is a creeping military coup.
What must be done
I have come to ask for two things:
The results of the presidential elections must be rejected by the international community.
An international commission should be established to audit the results of the elections.
A Profound Faith in Democracy
While I address you as a presidential candidate, I greet you today as human rights and a pro-democracy activist. As you know, I have dedicated my adult life to the struggle for democracy in Uganda.
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I come from the generation which beliefs that democracy is the gateway to human rights and human dignity and to the rule of law, and to tolerance and pluralism. Any government which claims to derive its mandate from the people must believe and practice democracy.
Anyone who believes in human dignity, and who believes that we are all created in the image of God and that we all stand equal before the law, must be believe and practice democracy.
Anyone who believes in Pan-Africanism and the dignity of the African person, and that an African has the equal claim to live as any person on this earth, must believe and practice democracy.
And to those friends around the world who wish Africa well and who believe in the dignity of the African continent, they too must believe in democracy and the inalienable right of the African to enjoy it and to live by the universal democratic creed.
I believe deeply in my heart that the African Renaissance will never happen without democracy. I believe profoundly that the East African Federation would be stillborn without democracy.
Sir Winston Churchill once said that the empires of the future will be the empires of the mind. That was true and profound. I hasten to reframe that statement. The empires of the future will be the empires of democracy.
No one can be a full citizen of the 21 st century without enjoying the full blessings of democracy. Any claim to the contrary is false.
#BesigyeWon
Lets do our civic duty to pass on THE PEOPLES PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
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