Teargas rocks Soroti city during NRM elections

Soroti, Uganda |  THE INDEPENDENT | Police have used teargas to disperse rowdy voters from four polling stations in Soroti East division during the NRM party primary elections. The affected polling stations are Kikandani, Acip, TesoIn and Moruapesur.

The angry voters said to be supporters of John Robert Esaru, one of the candidates for the Soroti East Division Mayoral NRM party ticket turned violent accusing his rival, Abdul Latif for ferrying voters to the polling station to vote in his favour.  

This prompted returning officers to seek guidance from the district NRM leadership, saying the voters had become uncontrollable. Both the army and police intervened to calm down the voters in vain prompting them to use teargas to disperse the irate voters.

Musa Oroma, the Soroti District NRM Party Registrar also tried to calm down the voters without success. He was forced to nullify the results from the four polling stations and wait for a final decision from the NRM Electoral Commission headquarters.  

Juma Amanja, the area LC- 1 Chairperson accused the district registrar of taking sides in the electoral dispute, saying the chaos couldn’t have happened if the district was professional at his work. 

However, some of the voters blamed the mess on the intervention of security, saying they would have voted well if police hadn’t showed up. 

The other aspirants vying for election as NRM candidates for the Soroti East Divisional mayoral seat are Alfred Aruo, Charles Edotu and Justine Ooja.

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