Politics
UGANDA: NRM DECLARES RESULTS FOR PRIMARIES IN GULU AMIDST PROTEST
The Returning Officer of the Party Mr. George Ebolla then discovered mismatch of the results with those in the declaration forms and called off tallying of the results for investigations.
By Simon Wokorach
GULU-UGANDA: Laker Sharon Balmoi has won in the controversial NRM Primary Elections for Gulu District Woman Member of Parliament in 2021 general elections.
The declaration came a day later after tallying of votes from 13 villages were suspended on Friday evening when Sub County Registrar delivered faults results to the tally center.
George Acao, the Owalo Sub County Registrar had hurriedly submitted in the results of the contested areas and quickly disappeared.
The Officials then launched investigations overnight where Mr. Acao was discovered to have altered the results which then gave a narrow win to the first runner-up Betty Atim with the differences of 33 votes.
However, the investigation outcomes had given Laker lead in the contested areas with 332 votes against her closet rival Betty Atim with 81 votes while Maya Auma got 87 respectively.
The final results declared however gave Laker Sharon Balmoi a win with 3006 votes while her counterpart Betty Atim came second with 2788 votes and Maya Auma thrilled with 668 votes.
However,at night when the tallying was suspended , Betty Atim was leading by 2,707 votes followed by Laker Sharon Balmoi with 2674 votes while Maya Atim was thrilling with 581 respectively.
Atim had instantly rejected the results and filed the petition to the National Electoral Commission of the NRM Party challenging the outcomes of the elections.
In her petition, she had cited election malpractices in eight villages from Omel Sub County with 367 votes which were not tallied.
The contested results among others include Bokeber,Atuk,Bura,Gwil,Lul and Olwor where this News Agency has seen not tallied.
However, Mr. Acao had confessed to the Party Officials that he attempted to influence results to favor aspirant Atim because she had been loyal and worked so hard to the Party, he was then pardoned.
Meanwhile, Charles Kinyera who lost to Simon Wokorach Peter for Aswa County Member of Parliament subsequently rejected the results a day after the declaration.
The Returning Officer declared Wokorach Simon Peter as Party Flag Bearer with 3006 votes beating his closet rival Kinyera who got 3477 votes and third was komakech Patrick with 636 votes while Robert Ojok thrilled with 122 votes.
Kinyera has similarly petitioned the Party on the results from Bokeber village saying he obtained a total of 180 votes in the area which could have handed him a win if the results were tallied.
James Ocen, the Chairman NRM Gulu District has confirmed receiving complaints on the election malpractices.
“Some of the results reached in the morning after the declaration but we shall file the omissions and submit with declaration forms to Party Headquarters to work it out” Ocen reaffirmed.
