By Gladys Mukisa.
Opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party president Patrick Amuriat Oboi has hinted on a plan by his party to set up its own tally center to manage the transmission of the 2026 electoral results even when the same plan has faced serious setbacks from the state before.
This FDC planned move has been triggered by the concerns of growing patterns of vote rigging from some of its supporters and members during elections, tasking the party leadership to explain its readiness in against the same especially during the 2026 polls.
The party supporters and members from Mayuge in Busoga sub region are some of those that raised concerns during the presidential flag bearer Nathan Nandala Mafabi campaign outreach to the area on Monday.
Some of those who served as polling agents for the party in the previous polls recounted how they were being accosted by individuals clad in security agency’s uniforms who would leave them hounded as well as confiscating their party candidate’s declaration forms containing election results.
Amuriat in response condemned the acts, saying they were undermining the country’s democratic principles and credibility of its electoral practice.
He revealed that the party was in advanced stages of setting up its own independent tally center to handle the tallying of electoral results for its candidates including the presidential.
The FDC party president confirmed that under that arrangement they will track results from the polling stations across the country and announce their results as opposed to the results by the national Electoral Commission (EC) which they accused of acting with partiality.
FDC presidential flag bearer Mafabi noted that staying around the polling stations by voters after casting their vote was one of the measures against voting rigging, before he could encourage them to adopt the approach.
In 2016 contentious election, FDC had mooted the same plan that saw establishment of a tally center at its Najjanankumbi based office, but ended up getting disrupted by the state on premise that the announcement of electoral results was only a preserve of EC according to the law.
Whether the FDC will this time succeed in setting up what has come to be viewed as a parallel tally center by the observers or not, it is a test of time.
The state had also blocked Daily Monitor News Paper’s independent tally center in 2006.
