The National Resistance Movement Electoral Commission Chairman, Dr. Tanga Odoi, has revealed that all officials who didn’t demonstrate sincerity in the Tuesday NRM LC1 flag bearer election will be fired.
Speaking to the media on Wednesday in Mbarara, Odoi expressed dismay at the officials who altered results in favor of some candidates.
“The main problem was emanating from apathy, the lack of will, lack of sincerity amongst some of our officials—the registrars at different levels. I have called upon all of them who altered results and said that they are going to be pushed out of the job,” Dr. Tanga said.
“All coordinators of the regions where altering of results took place must forward those reports last Monday, and we are going to remove those registrars. I also call upon all the district electoral officers to superintend over their staff at the sub-county, parish, and village levels,” Dr. Tanga added.
With reports of some villages marred by irregularities and violence, Tanga acknowledged the concerns, saying that 400 of the 72,000 villages didn’t vote and must vote today.
“As per the exercise conducted yesterday, I want to report that 400 of the 72,000 villages—which represents about 98.5%—didn’t vote. Those areas must vote today. Goons or no goons, security must prevail, and those areas must vote today. If the goons are hired to disrupt the exercise, we are going to take them on head-on,” Dr. Tanga said.
He expressed disappointment in some Resident District Commissioners (RDCs) in certain areas who overused their powers, saying he will write to appointing authorities and ensure they are not involved in the upcoming primaries.
“We want to thank the RDCs in some districts, but there are those in other districts who overstepped their mandate, and we are going to write to the appointing authority in such districts. We shall not need them in the upcoming primaries,” Dr. Tanga said.
“I want to request top leaders in Parliament who interfered with the process to refrain. Some parliamentarians messed up the exercise. The country is peaceful, and NRM elections should not take the country out of that peace,” Dr. Tanga added.
Rubirizi District, which didn’t carry out the voting exercise on Tuesday, will hold their election today.