Piece by: STAR REPORTER

09 August 2022

• The MP who spoke to the press at 3 pm denied claims that the bodyguards had been deployed to bribe voters.

• Kaunya said his bodyguards had no role to play in the elections in the constituency.

5 people among them three bodyguards of Teso North MP Oku Kaunya were arrested by the police.

They were detained following a fracas that occurred at Mwari Primary School in the constituency.

The MP who spoke to the press at 3 pm denied claims that the bodyguards, alongside two other people arrested had been deployed at Mwari to bribe voters in a bid to beat his opponent, Lawi Mamai.

Mamai is Kaunya’s main challenger in this year’s parliamentary elections in Teso North.The fracas happened about 100 meters away from Mamai’s home in Mwari and outside the Mwari Primary School polling centre.

During the incident, residents accused the five of being sent to bribe locals and cause chaos in the area as people continued to arrive at the Mwari Primary School and other neighboring polling stations to cast their votes.

One of the bodyguards who had brandished a pistol was beaten before the gun was confiscated.

Kaunya said the only lady who was in the vehicle from which one of his bodyguards was pulled out and beaten was his campaign coordinator.

She had been assigned to dispatch an appointment letter to one of his agents deployed at the Mwari Primary School polling station.

The other occupant of the vehicle was the driver.The MP’s bodyguards had been assigned to pick up his coordinator from her home in the same area where she was to drop the appointment letter off to the Mwari Primary School polling agent before proceeding to his Kakemer home.

He said the five were attacked as his agent alighted from the vehicle to deliver the appointment letter.

“That incident that took place was an attack by a group of people on some of my staff which included my escorts. They were driving in a vehicle on a road and not at the polling station whereby they had gone to drop one of my staff who was coming to my home in Kakamer from Amagoro town,” Kaunya said at a press briefing at his home.

Adding;

“The staff that was being dropped there is a coordinator in my region. She was going to take a letter to an agent to be admitted to the Mwari polling station.

Unfortunately, as they stopped on the road, they were quickly blocked by people who came and surrounded the vehicle.

It is like it was a planned action because the vehicle was known to be mine.”

Kaunya said his bodyguards had no role to play in the elections in the constituency.

He condemned the attack on his team calling on police to take action against the perpetrator of the attack.

Earlier in the day, Mamai had accused the MP of deploying the five to his home turf to bribe voters to tilt the election results in his disfavor.

Mamai said the act was unlawful and called on law enforcers to arrest and subsequently prosecute for his staff activity in elections.

He said acts of bribery on his supporters amounted to an insult to the democracy that the people of Teso North have enjoyed for a long time.

“This should serve as a warning to all those that are still thinking that they can go around and try to force the will of the people towards them that their actions won’t be accepted,” Mamai said shortly after casting his vote.

But Kaunya at the press conference later accused Mamai of orchestrating violence in a constituency that has known peace for decades.