A section of candidates standing on the National Unity Platform party ticket in Nakaseke District have accused the police of stopping all their planned political activities despite observing standard operating procedures (SOPs) put in place to control the spread of COVID-19.

The NUP candidates say police harass them and confiscate their mobile public address systems for community drives yet they allow other contestants from the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) to organise similar activities.

“The police engaged us in a chase and confiscated our mobile public address system that was meant for a drive and not a rally. The police trailed our vehicles even when we were not organising any public rally,” Mr Allan Mayanja Ssebunya, the NUP candidate for Nakaseke North Constituency, said in an interview on Monday.

“It is unfair for the police that is supposed to provide security to be turned into a machinery hunting down Opposition politicians that are executing their constitutional rights in preparation for the 2021 elections,” Mr Ssebunya added.

Ms Violet Nakalema, the NUP candidate for the Nakaseke District Woman MP seat, said police in the district is taking advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic to engage in partisan politics.

“When we set out for a drive through the different areas of Nakaseke District, the police on October 23 stopped our activities. While the same police officials allow the politicians from the ruling NRM political camp to flout the Covid-19 guidelines under their watch, our activities are stopped,” Ms Nakalema said.

“I have been a victim of acts of harassment including receiving intimidating phone calls. The police should not play double standards when we are consulting our electorates as we maintain the SOPs. We all know about Covid-19. We cannot risk lives of the people that we expect to be our voters. This is the very message that should be extended to the NRM politicians,” she added.

Mr Joseph Kiwanda, the NUP candidate for Kikamulo Sub-county seat, said he is receiving threats from security operatives who claim that Nakaseke does not belong to the Opposition.

”We are residents of Nakaseke and citizens of Uganda; why are they blocking us from reaching out to the voters?” Mr Kiwanda said.

However, Mr Sulait Kitaka, the district police commander, dismissed the allegations as baseless. He added that NUP candidates in the area are only seeking sympathy.

“It is true that we got intelligence briefing about the planned activities by a section of the politicians in total disregard to our earlier advice in line with the set Covid-19 guidelines. We responded accordingly. It is not true that we confiscated any of their respective properties,” Mr Kitaka said in an interview on Monday.

This comes after NUP on Monday accused police of tearing and pulling down presidential aspirant Robert Kyagulanyi Bobi Wine’s campaign posters in some places around Kampala and supervising and hanging up election posters of his rival President Museveni.

BACKGROUND

Last week, NUP presented pictures of police supervising the hanging up of Mr Museveni’s posters in Kireka suburb in Kampala while other pictures showed the police dismantling posters of Bobi Wine and throwing them on a police pickup to take them away.

“The same Uganda Police Force which guards NRM agents installing Museveni’s posters, pulls down my posters without quoting any section of the law. And if truly people love Museveni like he has always claimed, then why use police to guard those showing support for the most loved man in the land?” Bobi Wine stated.