y Eriasa Mukiibi Sserunjogi and Solomon ArinaitweKampala — The police allowed Dr Kizza Besigye to meet with the leaders of his Forum for Democratic Change party at his home in Kasangati, a Kampala suburb, but the party's leadership decided it was too late for them to petition against President Museveni's declared win in the February 18 election, before end of yesterday.
This left former prime minister Amama Mbabazi, who according to the results released by the Electoral Commission on February 20, came third with just over one per cent of the votes, as the only petitioner against the election.
The results show that Mr Museveni got 60.8 per cent of the votes, followed by Dr Besigye with 35.37 per cent. FDC president Maj Gen Mugisha Muntu said yesterday the party will today release a statement on what it will do next. "It is sad that we have not filed our petition in court," Gen Muntu said at the party's headquarters at Najjanankumbi yesterday evening, "The country has been robbed at gun point. It is not business as usual; this is not an ordinary situation."
Gen Muntu said their candidate was unable to file a petition because the police have confined him to his home almost since election day, arresting him every time he attempted to move out. Dr Besigye has been arrested on nine occasions since February 18 and has spent a number of days in police cells, after which he is driven to his gate at night.
Police spokesperson Fred Enanga said confining Dr Besigye, which the police say is a preventive measure to ensure that he does not cause chaos in the city, could not prevent FDC from filing a petition if they so wished, but the FDC leadership insist that the inability of the candidate to participate in the process crippled their efforts.
Dr Besigye, after the 2006 petition in which he challenged what he again called a "stolen" victory for Mr Museveni, vowed never to return to the Supreme Court over elections, a vow he repeated a number of times in recent months.
In 2001, Dr Besigye had filed a petition and lost it again on a split decision, with the justices acknowledging that there were a number of irregularities but that the irregularities had not substantially affected the results.
Gen Muntu said they were operating under a "very difficult" environment since the election, which he said could not enable them to file a petition. He cited preventing party leaders from meeting, blocking lawyers from meeting with Dr Besigye and arresting their agents countrywide as key impediments to their attempt to challenge the election.
The police, on the day after the elections on February 19, raided the FDC headquarters, sprayed the premises with teargas and arrested the top party leaders who had been meeting in preparation for a press conference.
The police said the party intended to declare Dr Besigye winner of the election. There have also been a number of arrests of FDC members in different parts of the country, like Mbarara and Ibanda in western Uganda, who the police said were members of Dr Besigye's Power 10 who were preparing to participate in chaos. The FDC claims that about 300 of its members countrywide have been arrested since election day.
Mr Yusuf Nsibambi, one of Dr Besigye's lawyers, said they "could not file a petition for the sake of it".
"Gathering evidence to support a petition of this importance is very difficult," Mr Nsibambi said, "You will gather one hundred people and listen to their stories and only pick out two credible ones to depone affidavits."
Gwokto La'Kitgum
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