NRM Flag bearer and incumbent president, Yoweri Museveni has said he has no intention to hold onto power in the event that he loses the 2016 general elections, adding that he is not power hungry.

President Museveni addresses the press at Arua state lodge. Photo by PPU

During a press conference at State Lodge in Anyafio on the outskirts of Arua on Thursday, Museveni said: “If I lose elections, how will I be in power, I have got my job, I am a cattle keeper. I am not power hungry but mission hungry so I have got a mission of economic transformation of Ugandans. But I cannot be intimidated by people like Besigye who do not have a mission for Uganda.”

“The saying that I cannot win in elections, I have been winning in the last elections 1996, 2001 and 2011. If the electoral commission is biased and is rigging for me, how is it that I lose in many constituencies including here (West Nile). It is until recently, that we won. The fact that we lose in some constituencies means that the commission is not biased and if the opposition is rigging votes could be because we are not vigilant,” he added.

FDCs Kizza Besigye and Civil Society Organizations have in the past faulted the Electoral Commission of bias.

Electoral Commission chairman Badru Kiggundu also recently faced off with MPs Abdu Katuntu and Sam Otada after the duo accused him of being in bed with and working on the instructions of Cabinet to swing the election scale in favour of government.

Mr Kiggundu had appeared before the Legal and Parliamentary Committee to give the Commission views on the KCCA Bill currently being considered by the committee.
Reacting to the accusations, Mr Badru Kiggundu denied three times ever working on anyone’s instructions.

“Nobody has ever instructed us and no one will ever. I want you to give us substantive evidence that we actually got instructions from anybody. We do not have anybody that gives us instructions even if anyone of you came to the Commission, you can never give us an instruction and we follow,” he said.