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[Monitor] The Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party yesterday challenged the Electoral Commission (EC) to summon all political candidates defying Covid-19 standard operating procedures (SOPs) during campaigns, including President Museveni.
Critics have called it a stunt to invite sympathy. Yet Amuriat says campaigning without shoes is a protest and that those who do not get its symbolism are missing a point.
Uganda is due to hold a general election on January 14. Amuriat and another opposition candidate, Bobi Wine have had their rallies violently dispersed by security forces or been arrested.
In mid-November, scores of people were killed as security forces attempted to quell protests against the arrest and detention of Bobi Wine.
Police has accused the candidates of addressing huge gatherings in contravention of regulations on COVID-19 prevention.
Swollen feet
In an interview with one of the dailies in Uganda, Amuriat said his feet hurt a lot and has to pour cold water on them in between campaign stops for some relief.
Doctors have cautioned him on the potential danger of contracting tetanus from cuts to his feet.
Yet Amuriat remains adamant. He says by refusing to wear shoes, he’s standing in solidarity with people whose wealth and opportunities have been stolen by the country’s longtime ruler Yoweri Museveni.
JUST IN: FDC presidential candidate Patrick Amuriat has been arrested at the border of Rubirizi and Bushenyi districts. The reason for his arrest is yet to be known📹 @MukhayeD#MonitorUpdates#UGDecides2021 pic.twitter.com/xopK4FMoD0
— Daily Monitor (@DailyMonitor) December 4, 2020
Museveni, in power since 1986 is seeking a new term. In 2017, he changed the constitution to remove age limits that would have stopped him from seeking re-election.
FDC is Uganda’s largest opposition party. In 3 previous elections, the party fronted veteran activist and retired army colonel Kizza Besigye for president.
Zimbabwe's health minister Obadiah Moyo was arrested on Friday for alleged corruption related to the supply of medical materials to combat the coronavirus pandemic, the anti-graft agency said.
The government did not immediately comment on the arrest, which came a day after the country's main opposition condemned alleged state corruption following suspicions over a $2-million-dollar payment to a medical company contracted to provide anti-coronavirus equipment.
Harare has come under fire for granting two-month-old company Drax Consult SAGL a contract to supply $20 million worth of drugs, personal protective equipment and Covid-19 test kits.
In March, authorities in Hungary - where Drax Consult SAGL is registered - flagged a suspicious $2 million deposit into the company's accounts, drawing anger from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
Government last week ordered the cancellation of all contracts for the supply of medicines and sundries by Drax, according to the state-run Herald newspaper.
June 10: Police rearrests ‘brutalized’ activists, govt jabs destabilizers
\tZimbabwe police Wednesday arrested three opposition activists on accusations that they lied in saying that they had been abducted and tortured, their lawyers said.
The three opposition women alleged that they were tortured and sexually abused by their abductors, whom they said took them from a police station in May, after they had been arrested for organizing an anti-government protest.
On Wednesday, police re-arrested the women at Harare Central Police Station where they had gone to surrender their passports as part of their bail conditions in the case linked to the protest march, said Kumbirai Mafunda, spokesman for Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, which is providing lawyers for the trio.
The arrests came as a group of United Nations human rights experts said the Zimbabwe government should “immediately end” the practice of disappearances and torture “that appear aimed at suppressing protests and dissent.”
Zimbabwe’s Home Affairs Minister Kazembe Kazembe told reporters Wednesday that the alleged abductions had been fabricated and were part of a wider agenda to destabilize President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government.
Guinea's main oppositon party published Friday a list of 46 people, aged between 3 and 70 years, killed during the repression of demonstrations after the October 18 election, officially won by the incumbent Alpha Condé.
Condé was declared re-elected on October 24 by the Electoral Commission for a controversial third term with 59.5% of the vote, but three of his opponents, including opposition leader Cellou Dalein Diallo, are contesting the results before the Constitutional Court, whose decision is expected on Saturday.
Diallo's party, the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea (UFDG), denounced in a statement a \"wave of terror\" orchestrated by the government between October 19 and November 3.
\"The provisional toll of this repression is 46 dead, nearly 200 wounded by gunfire, about a hundred arrests and extensive material damage,\" according to the UFDG.
The opposition has so far reported a death toll of at least 27, while for the government, the post-election violence resulted in 21 deaths, including members of the security forces.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) Africa Officer Ida Sawyer on Twitter on October 24 accused Guinean security forces of killing \"at least 8 people, including 3 children.
Amnesty International for its part accused the same security forces of firing live ammunition at demonstrators, without giving a detailed account.
The Ministries of Security and Territorial Administration did not immediately respond to the multiple requests for a reaction from the AFP to the UFDG document.
This document includes a list of names, usually with age, profession, circumstances of death, contacts of a relative, and photos showing these people, dead or alive. In about fifteen cases, these are photos of bodies showing traces of violence.
Most of the presumed victims are young men and women between 15 and 30 years old: motorcycle cab drivers, mechanics, students...
The youngest are a boy and a girl of 3 years old, Mamadou Midiaou Diallo and Mariatou Bah, and the oldest Mamouna Camara, a housewife of 70 years old.
The UFDG also states that \"the overwhelming majority of the victims (...) belong to the same ethnic group as the opposition leader,\" in a country where community affiliations play an important role in elections.
By Dorothy J. GentrySports Editor Both of Dallas’s professional basketball teams are in the state of Florida at separate, single-site campuses for the next few months as sports makes its
The Budadiri West County MP, Mr Nathan Nandala Mafabi, and his Serere counterpart, Mr Patrick Okabe, have clashed over a piece of land in Mbale Town with each claiming ownership.
Mr Nandala, who is also the secretary general for Forum for Democratic Change party, reportedly acting on a tip-off that Mr Okabe was fencing off the land, mobilised youth to block any activity on the contested land.
I wonder why Mr Okabe is trespassing on my land,\" Mr Nandala told police.
Mr Okabe claims he got the land from Mbale District land board and has a title for it.
A senior lands officer at Mbale District Local government, who preferred anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the press, said Mr Okabe has a genuine land title.
The first phase of the 20-year project that is set to change the face of Nairobi Central Business District (CBD) will kick-off this year.
Other countries scheduled to hold elections are Egypt, Guinea, Seychelles and Tanzania.
For countries that do hold elections, there may be special voting arrangements that can allow polls to go ahead but reduce the risk of spreading the virus.
In South Korea's elections in mid-April, the electoral commission encouraged people to vote before election day at any of the 3,500 polling stations throughout the country.
This not only decongested polling stations on election day but contributed to the highest turnout in the country for nearly 30 years.
This means that countries planning to hold elections in 2020 or early-2021 need to start discussing these arrangements - across party lines and among multiple relevant agencies - as soon as possible.
[Monitor] Members of Parliament (MPs) sitting on the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee yesterday rejected the Electoral Commission's (EC) decision banning open public rallies ahead of the 2021 General Elections.
Amid a global pandemic, it has gone by largely unnoticed - not least because the crisis also kept out election observers from the East African Community (EAC), the only foreign group the government accredited.
The ruling party has grown increasingly isolationist since the last election in 2015 when outgoing President Pierre Nkurunziza decided to stand for a third term, sparking months of protests.
The results - announced by the electoral commission three days after the vote - give the CNDD-FDD's candidate Evariste Ndayishimiye 68% of the vote.
Ndayishimiye's balancing act
One of the new president's key challenges on taking office will be to balance the various interests within the ruling party.
Ndayishimiye is new in the job and has made subtle overtures to international bodies in recent months, meeting with the AU Chairperson Moussa Faki and EAC officials.
Agathon Rwasa, Burundi's opposition leader and deputy speaker of Parliament has filed a petition at the country's constitutional court disputing the win of the ruling CNDD-FDD party's Evariste Ndayishimiye.
Mr Ndayishimiye won the May 20 presidential election with 68 per cent of the vote against Mr Rwasa's 24 per cent.
\"If the constitutional court rules in their favour I will move to the African Court because all the results that were announced by the electoral commission were wrong,\" said Mr Rwasa.
The country's Catholic Church deployed 2,716 observers countrywide, and has also expressed misgivings on the election process and its outcome.
However the chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission, Pierre Claver Kazihise, said that members of the Catholic church observer mission weren't well educated and informed about the electoral process.
[Monitor] The number of presidential aspirants for Uganda's 2021 election continues to grow despite concerns about the Electoral Commission's plan for virtual campaigns.
[Monitor] Kampala -- Buganda Road Chief Magistrates Court has granted Dr Stella Nyanzi, the former Makerere University research fellow.
[Monitor] Presidential hopeful Robert Kyagulanyi alias Bobi Wine will launch his manifesto a day later \"in light of the untimely death of senior leader Sheikh Anas Kaliisa.\"
Mahere, who replaces Daniel Molokele, is among 16 other strategic appointments made as part of the opposition chief's attempts to sharpen the MDC Alliance's National Standing Committee which is responsible for the day-to-day running of the party.
In his appointments, Chamisa also deployed one-time party youth leader and now MP Happymore Chidziva as secretary for rural mobilisation and strategy in the president's office.
MP Concillia Chinanzvavana and David Chimhini were elevated to the positions of deputy secretary generals of the party.
Former minister Jameson Timba and ex-Daily News journalist Luke Tamborinyoka were appointed deputy secretaries for presidential affairs while one-time party youth leader Lovemore Chinoputsa was appointed deputy secretary for international relations and cooperation.
\"The party has always had two deputy secretary generals and the current appointments focus on administration, presidential affairs, local governance and pays particular attention to rural communities.
