Police has arrested FDC presidential candidate Kizza Besigye, chairman Gen Mugisha Muntu and Ingrid Turinawe from Forum for Democratic Change supporters from their party headquarters in Najjanankumbi.
Police also fired teargas and bullets to disperse angry party supporters who have engaged it in running battles. One of the newly-acquired helicopters was also seen hovering over FDC offices.
Besigye’s arrest today is the the fourth in as many days having already been arrested twice on Tuesday when police blocked him from campaigning in Kampala Central Business District (CBD). Yesterday he was again arrested and driven home after he and some FDC officials Naguru stormed a house in Naguru they purported to be a centre of vote rigging.
The latest clashes between police and FDC started after the FDC top leadership announced plans to address a press conference about the ongoing vote tallying exercise. They also announced that they have their own parallel election results tally centre and will be releasing their own results.
As a result, police rushed to deploy at the FDC party headquarter and started dispersing the party members leading to confrontations. The FDC party members told the officers they didn’t have a right to disperse them since they were in the compound of their party offices.
Shortly after, Andrew Felix Kaweesi, the Police Director Human Resource Development stormed FDC offices and went into a closed door meeting with senior party officials led by their chairperson, Wasswa Birigwa.
The other members included Ingrid Turinawe, the FDC national mobilisation secretary and president, Gen Mugisha Muntu. A few minutes later, Kaweesi emerged from the FDC headquarters but declined to speak to the media on the purpose of his visit.
Lawrence Rokani, who claimed to be an FDC party official told journalists later, that they had called the presser to announce provision results from their tally center for Central Region.
According to Rokani, the provisional results from their tally center put Besigye, the FDC presidential candidate in the lead in Central Uganda. He also claimed that they are aware about the ongoing plans to alter the poll results.
We couldn’t speak to any senior party officials to collaborate Rokani’s claims as they were locked up in a meeting. While announcing the latest provisional results Electoral Chairman Badru Kiggundu warned of repercussions to those intending to announce results from parallel tally centres.
Meanwhile presidential candidate Amama Mbabazi’s home in Kololo has also been sealed off by police. The reasons are not yet known – The Observer