Bobi Wine: I’ll only accept results of free, fair election

National Unity Platform (NUP) party presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine has said he will reject Thursday’s election results should the party deem the poll irregular.

“The party I lead owes respect to the outcome if elections are conducted independently, freely, fairly and tallied with nothing but absolute transparency,” he told NTV Uganda in an exclusive interview on Wednesday.

He went on to reveal that NUP has established an independent tallying centre to check against potential rigging.

“We shall have our tally centres. This is a digital era. We are like flowing water: they stop us here, we emerge from a different direction,” he said.

Riding on musical fame, the pop star turned politician said he was confident that he had done enough despite a harrowing experience during electoral campaigns.

“I have been singing for almost 20 years. I believe people know me since I have been dropping my messages for change through my ‘rab dhaba’ music style,” he added.

Wine, who was speaking from his home in Magere that has somewhat been a hotbed of political activity, echoed messages of hope to his supporters.

“Let Ugandans be confident that NUP is winning this and freedom will be reclaimed in a new Uganda.”

He denounced the conduct of the country’s security forces in the run up to election day but said he was optimistic that the poll will set free hundreds of his “arbitrarily arrested” supporters.

A long lonely walk to the ballot box amid a Covid-19 pandemic awaits the presidential candidate who has seen several of his close allies either killed or arrested as the ruling National Resistance Movement, the party of President Yoweri Museveni, cracked down on the opposition.

“Wherever people like Eddy Mutwe, Dan Magic and Nubian Li have been detained innocently, they represent millions of Ugandans that are yearning for change. That will reflect in the polls and they will see freedom again,” he said.

Wine’s position on the electoral outcome mirrors that of Alliance for National Transformation’s (ANT) Gen Gregory Mugisha Muntu who also said opposition will unite and rally over 45 million Ugandans to defy results of the election if it is tainted with malpractice.

Forum for Democratic Change party presidential candidate, Patrick Oboi Amuriat, echoed this position saying: “We are not going to allow anything short of a fair election.”

About 18 million voters, majority youth, will vote to choose a president from a pool of 11 candidates on January 14 in an election that observers say is a contest of generations.