Uganda Elections : Besigye fires back at EC over UPDF remarks

FDC supporters cheer presidential candidate Dr Kizza Besigye at his rally in Fort Portal on Thursday. PHOTO BY DOMINIC BUKENYA. 
By FELIX BASIIME

Kabarole. Forum for Democratic Change presidential flag bearer Dr Kizza Besigye has fired back at the Electoral Commission (EC) chairman, Dr Badru Kiggundu’s threats to deploy the army against him.
Dr Besigye described Dr Kiggundu as a dreamer who is acting like someone else’s “loudspeaker.”
“All these are signs of change that is coming.

Kiggundu is just a loudspeaker of someone we all know. Kiggundu is my worker. In 2001 and 2006, the Supreme Court found him and his EC guilty of having mishandled the elections. So what is he saying now?” Dr Besigye said.
He was addressing hundreds of supporters who jammed Buhinga Stadium in Fort Portal, Kabarole District, for his rally on Thursday. It was the biggest crowd Dr Besigye has addressed in Kabarole District and Tooro sub-region since he started elective politics in 2001.

“Who doesn’t see this that Museveni is going and things have changed? If Tooro, for the first time in history, has seen change by showing me such huge support, who can’t see it?” Dr Besigye said as he received many NRM defectors, who handed over money and their party cards to him.
On Thursday, Dr Kiggundu said he would, on request by the government, authorise deployment of the military to counter Dr Besigye’s “defiance campaign.”

However on Thursday, Dr Besigye flatly snubbed Dr Kiggundu’s threats and reiterated his stance to continue with his “defiance” drive.
Shortly after nomination on November 4, for his fourth presidential contest, Dr Besigye declared “a campaign of defiance and not compliance”, which he said was meant to enable citizens “take back their power”, which had been “grabbed from them by a dictatorship”.
He has since maintained that he is in the 2016 campaign not by compliance but defiance.