The Electoral Commission Chairperson has declared the Oyam North County by-elections as free and fair following the victory of the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) party candidate Eunice Otuko Apio.
Apio was declared the winner on Thursday night. She polled 15,718 votes, beating National Resistance Movement (NRM)’s Samuel Engola Okello who garnered 15,161 votes. The race was tight between UPC, NRM and other opposition political parties including Forum for Democratic Change(FDC) and National Unity Platform(NUP).
EC returning officer Richard Onabo duly announced Apio as winner after announcing results from other candidates. They include; FDC’s Freddy Newton Okello with 714 votes and NUP’s Daniel Okello who got 403 votes.
Onabo says a total of 31,996 voters participated in the elections from the 167 polling stations.
The EC boss Justice Simon Byabakama Mugenyi, says the polls were generally peaceful , free and fair exxept for a few isolated incidents at some of the polling stations.
“The exercise was overly peaceful save for a few areas where some of the actors were undisciplined but the EC was on top of the game and voters in those polling stations were not disenfranchised but given a chance to vote.” he said
However, Apio has sighted incidents of violence and vote stuffing.
“I expected a fairly leveled ground but as we progressed through the day reality set it because there was a lot of intimidation, blatant raids on polling stations in my strong hold, violence on voters and ballot stuffing quite often. But Unity is important and I am going to reach out to everyone regardless of their party so that we come together to develop our community,” she said
Apio replaces Col (Rtd) Charles Okello Engola, who was killed in May by his bodyguard identified as Wilson Sabiiti.