UGANDA: ALLEGATIONS OF "GHOST" VOTERS HAUNT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KAMPALA 001323 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/16/2019 TAGS: PGOV KDEM KCOR UG SUBJECT: UGANDA: ALLEGATIONS OF "GHOST" VOTERS HAUNT ELECTORAL COMMISSION REF: A. KAMPALA 01166 ¶B. KAMPALA 01196 ¶C. KAMPALA 01275 ¶D. KAMPALA 01278 ¶E. KAMPALA 01097 ¶F. KAMPALA 00979 Classified By: Pol/Econ Chief Aaron Sampson for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). 1.(C) Summary: An internal report by the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party accuses the Electoral Commission of conspiring with opposition leaders to stack Uganda's voter registry with "ghost" voters and "phantom" villages. The report - commissioned by President Museveni and Security Minister Amama Mbabazi, and drafted by Mbabazi's daughter Nina - could lead to the dissolution of the Electoral Commission (EC),which is regarded by opposition parties, civil society, and international donors as favorable to the NRM. The NRM's assessment concludes the EC favors the opposition. On November 11, Nina Mbabazi predicted a massive EC shake-up, complained of NRM infighting, and claimed Museveni is looking for someone to run in his place as President in 2011. End Summary. -------------- -------------- NRM Declares Open Season on Own Electoral Commission -------------- -------------- ¶2. (SBU) On October 22, Uganda's main opposition newspaper published excerpts of an internal NRM report accusing core EC officials of conspiring with opposition parties to place "ghost" voters and "phantom" villages on Uganda's voter rolls. Opposition parties have identified a new EC as a prerequisite for their participation in the 2011 elections because they view the current EC as pro-NRM (refs. A, B and C). Various iterations of the NRM report accuse the EC of placing 500,000 to one million pro-opposition "ghost" voters on the voter registry to force the NRM's Presidential candidate into a second round election run off in 2011. The report singles out EC Secretary Sam Rwakoojo, Legal Council Alfred Okello Oryem, and a handful of mid-level officials for corruption, fraud and conflict of interest, and recommends firing Rwakoojo "forthwith as he as done the most to damage (the) NRM." ¶3. (SBU) Several diplomatic missions subsequently received copies of an anonymous letter, allegedly from a disgruntled EC accountant, purporting to offer further evidence of Rwakoojo and Okello Oryem's misdeeds. Dated October 26 and addressed to Security Minister and NRM Secretary General Mbabazi, the letter accuses Rwakoojo, Okello Oryem, and EC Chairman Badru Kiggundu of conspiring to lose legal cases against the EC in order to pocket percentages of court ordered payouts to claimants, fixing inflated procurement contracts, accepting bribes, and promoting female EC staff members in return for sex. -------------- NRM: Voter Registry is Beyond Repair -------------- ¶4. (C) Senior NRM officials, including Cabinet Minister and NRM Chief Whip Daudi Migereko, sought to distance the NRM from the internal report following its publication, claiming that the document did not represent the views of the NRM. On November 11, however, Minister Mbabazi's daughter Nina confirmed to PolOff that President Museveni commissioned the report, provided USD 50,000 in funding, and tasked Nina with leading a team of 100 NRM "volunteers" to audit both the EC and its voter registry. Nina said the EC's incompetence will lead to post-election legal challenges that could throw even genuinely free and fair election results into doubt. The NRM is particularly fearful of challenges that would accuse the EC of preventing eligible Ugandan citizens from casting presidential ballots. ¶5. (C) Nina said NRM analysis of the registry's 10.5 million names reveals more than 600,000 repetitions. Some of these "ghost" voters appear as many as 8 to 10 times in the register. She also accused the EC of illegally deleting more than 700,000 NRM voter names. Describing Uganda's existing voter registry as beyond repair, she advocated for a massive and immediate nation-wide citizenship drive to replace the flawed voter register and stave off any potential post-election legal challenges based on the question of citizenship. ¶6. (C) The EC has already issued a tender - now suspended KAMPALA 00001323 002 OF 003 (ref. D) - for a USD 15 million biometric voter ID program. Nina dismissed the voter ID program as pointless (because it fails to remedy the wider citizenship identity problem),a financial waste (because it consumes more than 100% of the EC's available funding),and illegal (because the program targets not the entire nation but only selected municipalities). She said the NRM has already hired a local data entry firm to create a working database of Ugandan citizens by reconciling what can be salvaged from the voter registry with internal NRM membership records. The NRM's national membership drive recently launched by NRM Secretary General Mbabazi (ref. E) is the backbone of Nina Mbabazi's "citizen" database. -------------- The End of the EC As We Know It? -------------- ¶7. (C) To substantiate her theory that the opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party is working with EC officers to rig the voter registry, Nina unfurled a 2ft by 3ft organizational chart of the EC, with the names of each of the EC's 80 or so national level employees highlighted in yellow for the NRM or blue for the FDC. According to Nina, only two of the EC's six Commissioners support the NRM. The four remaining Commissioners are highlighted blue, along with EC Secretary Rwakoojo. Nina described strident opposition party criticism of the EC as "lip service" to instill a "mindset" among Ugandans and international donors of an NRM bent on rigging the 2011 election. She added that the NRM has "people" inside all the opposition parties and therefore knows what opposition parties are doing. ¶8. (C) The word "Change" was scrawled in pen beside the names of several EC employees on Nina's chart. She said the NRM wants to either fire or reassign these individuals, and predicted a vastly different EC by January 2010. EC Secretary Rwakoojo, Chairman Kiggundu, and Legal Council Okello Oryem are the most likely to go. Nina said the NRM "will burn down" the EC if Rwakoojo is still Secretary come January, and that she would personally light the match. ¶9. (C) COMMENT: EC Chairman Kiggundu, four other Commissioners, and Secretary Rwakoojo have all either run for office as members of the NRM or worked for the NRM party (ref. F). The NRM's conspiracy theory about opposition infiltration of the EC seems to have spawned not only a skewed vision of the EC, but a network of informants charged with ferreting out the personal political sentiments of every EC employee. Asked to explain why her team classified only two Commissioners as pro-NRM, Nina admitted that many "profiles" were "not the best" because her "profilers" incorrectly equated criticism of government corruption with being anti-NRM. Clearly Nina's concern is that NRM EC members are not pro-NRM enough. Ironically, her color coded chart reveals a relatively balanced EC largely representative of the Ugandan electorate as a whole. END COMMENT. -------------- -------------- Corruption, Infighting and NRM Leadership Disputes -------------- -------------- ¶10. (C) Nina said rampant corruption has seriously weakened the NRM. She said her father was shocked to discover villagers willing to support the NRM but not Museveni during his tour of the countryside, and said Ugandans never made this distinction before. She also complained of bitter NRM infighting, labeled party members opposed to her research as "saboteurs," and accused Museveni's Private Secretary Amelia Kyambadde and Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa of conspiring to thwart her direct access to the President and to undermine her research. Nina said she angered Kutesa by agitating for the removal of 7,000 "ghost" voters from his home constituency, and that she personally leaked copies of her report to the press to convince local journalists not to publish a news story about the Mbabazis planted by Amelia and Kutesa. ¶11. (C) Nina said there are "indications" Museveni is tired and looking for a trustworthy successor to run in his place in 2011, and that her father is the most likely candidate. She said Kutesa is not a serious contender and is working to sabotage the Mbabazis because he knows his fortunes will decline should Mbabazi ever take over. COMMENT: We have seen no indications that Museveni is considering stepping down in ¶2011. END COMMENT -------------- Comment: As the NRM Turns KAMPALA 00001323 003 OF 003 -------------- ¶12. (C) Some "ghost" voters are attributable to fraud perpetrated by the NRM and opposition parties. Others are the result of inherent bureaucratic mistakes governing the management of a list of more than 10 million names. Instead of implementing a transparent program to clean up the voter registry, the EC embarked on a quixotic biometric voter ID program that addresses neither the overall issue of "ghost" voters nor the NRM's citizenship concerns. However, an NRM sponsored national "citizen" database using primarily NRM membership records will likely yield nothing more than a second flawed list of Ugandan voters. Nina's report will likely lead to a dissolution of the EC. With opposition parties, civil society, international donors, and now the NRM all publicly questioning the EC's impartiality, it is difficult to envision how the EC can operate effectively. While all those interested in a free and fair election may seek a new EC, without serious changes to the constitutionally mandated EC appointment process, any new Commissioners selected by President Museveni are liable to be equally partisan. LANIER