The Inter Party Cooperation independent tally of votes from the recent presidential elections give the Forum for Democratic Change president, Kizza Besigye, a 47 percent win at the polls.
The results released on Tuesday were reportedly collected from 7,536 polling stations countrywide. According to them, President Yoweri Museveni only managed to obtain 45 percent of the vote.
This is a stark contrast to official results announced by the Electoral Commission that give Museveni an overwhelming 63 percent of the vote and Besigye only 26 percent of the votes cast.
In a news conference to announce the results, Besigye said strongholds of the FDC in northern and eastern Uganda were not included in the tally. He implied that this meant his support in the rest of the country was much higher than the Electoral Commission announced.
Besigye said the results from the Inter Party Cooperation's tally center were released two weeks late because of the difficult task in compiling all the figures.
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Besigye claimed that the Inter Party Cooperation tally center operations were blocked by security agents. He said some volunteers at the center fled in fear and work was suspended prematurely.
Both the police and the army have persistently denied this claim and asked the opposition leader to provide proof of harassment.
Besigye maintains that his allegations are true. He said his agents were arrested or sent away from polling stations on election day and were unable to collect their tally forms. He claimed that they were also denied access to declaration of national tally forms by election officials.
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Besigye demanded that the Electoral Commission avail the Inter Party Cooperation all the results declaration forms for scrutiny. He said this would remove doubt about his claim that the electiosn were rigged by the National Resistance Movement.
Besigye said that unlike the previous two elections where he went to court to seek to repeal the vote, this time he would leave judgement of the outcome of the polls to the people of Uganda.
The results from the Inter Party Cooperation put Norbert Mao of the Democratic Party in third place, UPC's Olara Otunnu in fourth place and Beti Olive Kamya of the Uganda Federal Alliance in fifth place. Abed Bwanika, Jabeli Bidandi Ssali and Samuel Lubega came in sixth, seventh and last.
The Electoral Commission spokesperson, Charles Willy Ochola, said they stand by the official results declared on February 20th. He said the Electoral Commission would not refute or deny the Inter Party Cooperation results.
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