NRM vote protection move to check poll violence

By Richard Kintu

Last week the National Resistance Movement (NRM) party launched its nationwide vote protection project.
In the event that took place at the office of the NRM National Chairman at Kyambogo, hundreds of NRM diehards were flagged off by Al-Hajji Moses Kigongo to start preparations geared towards ensuring that the NRM candidates’ votes are well protected.
Kigongo urged the vote protectors that attended the training of trainers’ workshop to be patriotic as this is the only way they will help the ruling party to ensure victory.
And echoing Kigongo’s call, ONC office head Milly Babirye Babalanda, the senior presidential advisor on political affairs, warned the vote protectors against complacency.
She counseled the trainees that it is very risky for any NRM party supporter to assume that victory will come easily without hard work.
“It is not true that NRM has already secured victory, so complacency should be avoided because it is very dangerous. Please go out and mobilize as much as possible so as to be able to secure the future of this country,” Ms. Babalanda said.

The Implication

By composition, the vote protectors include politicians and other members of the public from all over the country who pledged to secure President Museveni’s votes come 2021. However, Faruk Kirunda, the administrator of the office, the security officers were invited to the training so as to be introduced to the coordinators and to brief them on their roles.
“Security has been concerned about the recruitment of these teams. You can imagine when you are recruiting hundreds of thousands of people, security has to know. So we invited them to come and see that the group is genuine and composed of people known to us,” Kirunda said.
The recruited vote protectors were taught the roles of the various election stakeholders as well as laws governing elections; particularly those that can lead to annulment of elections.
It was also revealed that the vote protectors will be facilitated both financially and materially, so as to execute their work including identifying agents, and they will work hand in hand with all existing NRM party structures right from the grassroots.
All indications are that by assembling such a formidable team and training them in what makes an election credible, NRM is trying to close all avenues that the opposition can use to rob it of victory.
During the training, the vote protectors were urged to be well equipped with their smart phones and other recording gadgets.
They are supposed to use them to capture all forms of election violence and related malpractices on the side of the opposition as well as the polling officials right from the presiding officers to the polling constables.
In fact, because the party deemed it unfair to take anybody unawares, this explains why the training involved police and army officials. These are supposed to carry the message of caution to colleagues that may be tempted to engage in any malpractice, either as a result of personal character or outside influence.
It is worth noting that for a long time the opposition has reportedly been planning to cause chaos in the name of protecting their candidates’ votes. Now, by NRM fielding a formidable team of well-trained vote protectors, the party for these hoodlums is as good as over before it even takes place.
Where the opposition intended to use weapons and senseless excitement to intimidate NRM poll assistants, it is now clear that visionary preparation has been deployed to counter the negative forces.
According to Saleh Kamba, the head of political intelligence and operations at the Office of the NRM National chairperson, the vote protection team will include regional crime officers, Regional intelligence officers, security officers, Resident District Commissioners, and police and army officers.
Kamba noted that these groups of over 200 people will be transformed into the trainers of trainers who are supposed to impart knowledge to the people on the grassroots and polling agents