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[Monitor] Finance minister Matia Kasaija was last night on the defensive following accusations that he irregularly dangled a top government job to secure the exit of his opponent in a parliamentary contest.
\t On Friday, internet and international calls were cut off across the West African nation in anticipation of the election results, according to locals and international observers in the capital, Conakry.
\t This was the third time that Conde matched-up against Diallo. Before the election, observers raised concerns that an electoral dispute could reignite ethnic tensions between Guinea's largest ethnic groups.
Malawi's governing party has called for a third presidential election, citing irregularities and intimidation in this week's re-run vote as unofficial tallies show incumbent President Peter Mutharika losing to the opposition leader.
Voters in the southern African country went to the polls on Tuesday for the second time in 13 months after the Constitutional Court scrapped the initial May 2019 presidential election over mass fraud.
The governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) called Friday on the electoral commission to annul the results collated so far of the second vote and declare a third poll.
DPP administrative secretary Francis Mphepo said in a statement: \"We wish to highlight several incidents that may potentially affect the integrity and credibility of the presidential election results.\"
In February, Malawi's top court found the election was marred by widespread irregularities, including the use of correction fluid to tamper with result sheets.
Parliament on Tuesday passed a resolution tasking government to waive water and electricity bills for a period of six months to help relieve the many Ugandans in the post-lockdown recovery process.
While debating a motion moved by Masaka Municipality MP Mathias Mpuuga, the legislators said since the lockdown was imposed in March, many Ugandans spend a lot of time at home and consume a lot of electricity and water more than they would use while at work.
Mr Mpuuga argued that Uganda should borrow a leaf from other countries, including Ghana, which have already paid off the water and electricity bills for the citizens for a specific period of time.
Ms Jesca Ababiku (Adjumani Woman, NRM) said much as the people in rural areas are not connected to water provided by the National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC), there is a need for government to also repair boreholes and other dilapidated water sources.
The MPs said with President Museveni not including waiver on water and electricity bills as part of a stimulus package during the State of the Nation Address on June 4, payment of the cumulative bills will suffocate many Ugandans.
Chief Justice Bart Katureebe will preside over two more appeals to the Supreme Court even though his retirement date is just a week from now, Saturday Monitor has learnt.
In a cause-list released this week at the Supreme Court, Justice Katureebe will lead four other judges to determine two civil appeals.
Justice Kisaakye Kitimbo, the current office-in-charge of the Supreme Court, when asked why she decided to include the retiring Chief Justice on the panel to start hearings next week, said: \"He is still the Chief Justice and a Justice of the Courts of Judicature until June 20.
At that point, it was Justice Katureebe whose rise to the office of Chief Justice was being delayed because he had been recommended to the President as the most qualified candidate by the Judicial Service Commission.
The Judicial Service Commission has already conducted interviews and shared names of their preferred candidates to the President, with the race thought to be between Deputy Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo and Supreme Court Judge Richard Buteera.
[Monitor] President Museveni yesterday kick-started his re-election campaign trail at Kawumu in Luweero District.
Ms Gadaheldam has been an almost permanent fixture on the sides of President Museveni in regional meetings to deal with relations with Sudan under former President Omar-al-Bashir and current military leader Gen Abdel Fatah al-Burhan.
Najwa Gadaheldam, a senior adviser to Sudan's leader, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, died Wednesday, about 24 hours after the plane that had intended to transport her back to Israel for treatment landed in the Arab country.
Times of Israeli in a lead article titled; 'Israeli MDs fly to enemy Sudan in failed bid to save diplomat behind secret ties', said despite the two countries still being technically at war, Israeli officials went to great length to send \"a plane with medical staff and equipment to Sudan in an attempt to save the life of a diplomat sick with Covid-19, who managed the clandestine ties between Jerusalem and Khartoum\".
The controversial Uganda link
Ms Gadaheldam was said to have first met President Museveni in Vienna, Austria at the UN conference on water in early 2000s when the relations between Uganda and Sudan were fragile.
Ms Gadaheldam's last 'official' function involving Uganda was said to have been on February 22 in Juba, where she attended a meeting between Lt Gen al-Burhan, the chairman of the Sovereign National Council of Sudan, and Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda, who was representing President Museveni at the inauguration of the new government of national unity of South Sudan.
Uganda’s two key opposition figures, Kizza Besigye of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) and People Power leader MP Robert Sentamu Kyagulanyi (aka Bobi Wine) on June 15 announced a strategy for joint political activities under the United Forces of Change.
Bobi Wine and Dr Besigye have branded their partnership a political pressure group meant to push back against President Yoweri Museveni’s government.
Before he joined mainstream politics in 2017 as a member of parliament for Kyadondo East, Bobi Wine was a Dr Besigye supporter.
At some point, the seeming popularity of Bobi Wine’s People Power created suspicion and hostility with the FDC, the largest opposition party in Uganda.
Our strategies may differ at some point but our objective is the same,” said Bobi Wine at the launch.
[Monitor] Ruhinda South MP Donozio Mugabe Kahonda, has withdrawn the lawsuit in which he was seeking to block the Electoral Commission (EC) from scrutinising his nomination.
Candidates seeking electoral positions in Uganda's general election due early next year will have to conduct their campaigns without physical contact as dictated by Covid-19 social and physical distancing, the Electoral Commission has announced.
The commission, which released a new roadmap of electoral activities, has set November 2 and 3, 2020 as nomination dates for Presidential candidates.
NO POSTPONING ELECTION
Article 61(2) of the Constitution provides that the \"Electoral Commission shall hold general presidential, parliamentary and local government council elections within the first thirty days of the last ninety days before the expiration of the term of the President.\"
Responding to questions about calls for postponing the election to give all candidates a fair chance in light of the Covid-19 disruption, Mr Byabakama said, \"The option of postponing the election has not even occurred to us as a commission because it is not in our mandate.
Mr Byabakama added that the commission's mandate is limited only to state (public) media which is required to give equal space to all presidential candidates.
He also said whereas government will distribute free masks to all Ugandans aged six years and above, others are free to buy their own facemasks.
Dr Aceng recommended that facemasks should preferably be made of cotton fabrics and have filters that they can wash or replace after use.
Dr Julius Lutwama, a virologist at the Uganda Virus Research Institute, said one has to change their facemasks at least three times a day, especially those working from public places such as markets, since the mask lets in tiny particles due to moist from saliva.
Dr Aceng said there is a shortage of fabric masks, especially N95, and urged Ugandans to reserve them for health workers.
A person wearing a mask needs to stay two metres away from other people while in public because coronavirus can still go through the eyes and touching other surfaces.
In some nations, there is a body or electoral commission that supervises elections, but that is not the situation in the United States. With each state having its own systems and laws for counting votes, vote-counting is still ongoing with people on the edge of their seats hoping to have a clear winner soon. Joe...
The post Get to know the Black candidates who have made history in the 2020 U.S. Election appeared first on Face2Face Africa.
Polling station closed across Burundi on Wednesday in a largely incident free process in keenly watched general elections.
Burundians stood in long lines outside polling stations, which opened shortly after six am, most centers had hand washing points for people arriving to vote and election officials had some protective equipments in some instances.
Meanwhile, main opposition candidate, Agathon Rwasa, has protested what he says is fraud in Wednesday’s general election.
He said his party’s election observers were chased away from some polling stations.
In the presidential vote, 5.1 million registered voters are to choose between Nkurunziza’s handpicked heir and frontrunner, 52-year-old general Evariste Ndayishimiye, main opposition competitor Agathon Rwasa, and five other candidates.
[Monitor] The images of Mityana Municipality MP Francis Zaake being carried to the Mityana Chief Magistrate's Court to take plea while prostrate after allegedly being tortured in police custody back in April were as distressing as they could be.
Uganda will go ahead with its planned re-opening of the country despite recording more than 150 Covid-19 cases in three days, according to President Yoweri Museveni.
In an address to the nation on Monday evening, President Museveni said that public transport will resume but with necessary health and safety measures in place.
\"For the next 21 days, no private or public transport is allowed in the border districts.
Meanwhile, Uganda on Tuesday recorded 32 new Covid-19 cases raising the national tally to 489.
\"Nineteen of the new confirmed cases are from 1,693 samples from points of entry while 13 are from 423 samples of contacts and alerts,\" the Health Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
Government will have to purchase over 137,000 television sets if they are to facilitate distance learning as proposed by President Museveni.
In his televised address on Monday, Mr Museveni postponed the partial reopening of schools for another one month but said \"children must continue studying under the distance learning programme\" on televisions and radios.
He made a number of proposals to facilitate the programme, among them; provision of two television sets to each village and a radio set to each home.
Mr Museveni says much as there are fears that the TV sets could bring about congregation, thereby undermining social distancing of the children, he is optimistic that it is easy to identify any child who has the virus since they are from one village.
\"Children from the same village, if they have sickness it would have already shown up,\" added Mr Museveni.
Malawians return to the polls on Tuesday for the second time in just over a year to vote for a new president after Peter Mutharika's re-election was annulled over rigging.
The election is much anticipated after the Constitutional Court early this year ruled that the May 2019 vote, won narrowly by Mutharika, was fraught with \"grave and widespread irregularities\" including the use of correction fluid on results sheets.
Tuesday's election is practically a two-horse race between the president and his main rival Lazarus Chakwera, who lost the May 2019 election by 159,000 votes.
Last week Kachale vowed \"the highest commitment of myself and the entire commission to deliver a credible election whose results will be acceptable by all stakeholders\".
Gift Trapence of the Human Rights Defenders Coalition, which led months-long countrywide street protests against last year's election results, has high hopes this time around.
[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.\"
Malawi’s electoral commission appealed for “peace and calm” on Wednesday as it counted ballots following a historic poll to re-elect a president after Peter Mutharika’s victory was overturned.
Voters in Malawi went to the polls on Tuesday for the second time in just over a year after the Constitutional Court dramatically ruled that last year’s polls were fraught with “grave and widespread” irregularities.
Results from the May 2019 election sparked countrywide protest that lasted months, a rare occurrence in the impoverished southern African country.
It took the top court six months to sift through the evidence before concluding that Mutharika was not duly elected and ordered fresh elections.
The chairman of the Malawi Electoral Commission, Chifundo Kachale, said tallying of the votes from 5,002 polling stations was underway.
“We appeal to Malawians to maintain peace and calm as the vote-counting continues,” Kachale told a news conference in Blantyre.
Mutharika has accused the opposition of inciting violence following isolated incidents which the police and electoral commission said had not affected the election.
“It’s obvious that the opposition is doing this,” he told reporters after voting in Blantyre, claiming some of his party monitors were “chased away, some were beaten”.
“It’s obviously people that are afraid of the will of the people that are engaging in these barbaric acts,” he alleged.
Mutharika, 79, did not take the decision of the constitutional court lightly when it overturned last year’s poll.
He accused judges of working with the opposition to steal the election through what he dubbed a “judicial coup d’etat”.
He had narrowly won the now-discredited election with 38.5 percent of the ballots, beating his closest rival Lazarus Chakwera, 65, by just 159,000 votes .
Victory in the rerun will be determined by whoever garners more than 50 percent of the votes — a new threshold set by the top court.
Some 6.8 million people were asked to vote between Mutharika, Chakwera and an underdog candidate, Peter Dominico Kuwani.
The electoral commission has until July 3 to unveil the results, although the announcement is widely thought likely to come this week.
Kachale says the commission will only announce results after dealing with all the complaints.
AFP
[Monitor] President Museveni yesterday warned the youth to stay away from poor leaders and listed four priority areas in the fight against the rampant youth unemployment in the country.
It was supposed to be an iconic flawless structure and symbol of pride for Kayunga District, but the administration block is falling apart.
These visible defects in the structure have raised concerns from the staff and residents who visit the district headquarters.
Mr Robert Drate, the district water engineer, who was the acting district engineer then and oversaw the construction work, acknowledges that the structure is in a \"sorry state\".
Some of the district staff, who declined to be named, complain that in some cases, their documents are destroyed by water from the leaking roof.
Mr Tom Sserwanga, the Kayunga District chairperson, blames the problem on the original design of the building which he says does not favour proper water drainage.
Our plan is to distribute between 2 million and 3 million kilograms of additional maize seed targeting districts in Eastern, Northern and parts of central regions whose rainy season goes up to July.
So with our efforts to provide additional seeds to farmers, we believe that the country will be food secure during and after Covid-19 pandemic.
Could this pandemic be a blessing in disguise in terms of emphasis on food production and household income or its disruption in normal flow of work?
We want to see farmers earning more income, households living quality lives and food security becoming part and parcel of the routine fixture.
We have also selected some 17 districts which are tea growing areas in regions across the country and working with Uganda Developed Corporation tea factories will be established there.
President Museveni has appointed former deputy Chief Justice Steven Kavuma as the new board chairman of the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
\"It is true cabinet on Monday, approved Justice Kavuma as the board chair for Civil Aviation Authority for a three-year contract,\" Ms Nabakooba said by telephone on Wednesday morning.
Ms Kiryabwire and Mr Kubeketerya were retained from the old board.
The core mandate of the board members of CAA is to give an oversight role to the country's aviation activities.
When contacted over the phone, the former deputy Chief Justice welcomed the appointment, \"I am feeling great as this is another opportunity for me serve my country again and also internationally.\"
President Museveni on Monday warned of \"serious trouble\" if all the two million Ugandan citizens trapped outside the country because of the virus induced lockdown returned home.
According to Mr Museveni, only 2,500 Ugandans have expressed interest to return home.
According to the president, easing lockdown will be tied to the use of facemasks in public.
We believe that with the masks you do not infect others and you also do not get infected,\" Mr Museveni added.
This will need two weeks for Ministry of Education to plan how the learners can go to school,\" he added.
Sand mining has resumed on the shores of Lake Victoria despite the recent presidential directive to the Minister of Water and Environment to clear all wetlands, riverbanks and lakeshores of encroachers.
The mining site, at Buwaya-Nakiwogo in Wakiso District, is said to be owned by a businesswoman in Bugolobi, Kampala.
Mr Matia Lwanga Bwanika, the district chairperson, said his engagement with the executive director of the National Environmental Management Authority (Nema), Dr Tom Okurut, revealed that he was aware of the mining.
Mr Bwanika said they had sought the intervention of Mr Noah Njuki, the Resident District Commissioner of Entebbe.
Other mining activities around Lake Victoria in Wakiso have been halted following the intervention of Mr Matia Lwanga Bwanika, the district chairperson.
Members of Parliament have questioned how textile firm Nytil was awarded a contract to produce and supply facial masks across the country.
\"Now that government is to provide masks to Ugandans, I seek to know how ordinary companies and young people making masks can benefit.
In his address on Monday, President Museveni said it will take Nytil two weeks to manufacture masks for all Ugandans above six years of age.
It was, however, sold in 1996 to Southern Range Nyanza Limited, a private company owned by Mr Kishor Jobanputra, who is also a member of the National Response Fund to Covid-19 formed by President Museveni on May 3.
Government had threatened to cancel the VAT concession in the 2014/15 budget before Nytil ran to Parliament and threatened to lay off more than 3,000 employees directed employed by the company.
President Museveni's message on the effects on Covid-19 was yesterday delivered by the Secretary General of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM), Ms Justine Kasule Lumumba, to the Inter-party Organisation for Dialogue (IPOD) meeting where Justice Forum (Jeema) took over its leadership from the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party.
Appeal
Ms Lumumba also challenged Jeema to prioritise a meeting between the IPOD members and the Electoral Commission officials to discuss alternative ways the elections can be conducted based on the recommendations from scientists.
However, the FDC party president, Mr Patrick Amuriat Oboi, said it should not be scientists to determine the fate of the elections but stakeholders including the political parties.
The deputy president of the Democratic Party (DP), Mr Mukasa Mbidde, told the meeting that elections are not \"scientific expeditions\" for scientists to decide.
Follow Constitution
The president of Jeema, Mr Asuman Basalirwa, said elections are guided by the Constitution and other electoral laws and it should not be scientists to determine how, when and who should contest for elections.
