The National Resistance Movement (NRM)’s Herbert Ariko has been announced as the new Soroti city east Member of Parliament (MP) elect after a tight contest yesterday Thursday 28th July 2022 in an election that was characterized by arrests of opposition members and allegations of pre-ticked ballots that have made the opposition to cry out.
Ariko was declared the winner of the elections from Soroti University by the Soroti city returning officer Christine Eyuu after he managed to garner 9,407 votes, Moses Okia Attan of the Forum for Democratic Change FDC Party got 8,771 votes and UPC’s Pascal Amuriat (UPC ) garnered 115 votes out of the 18,293 valid votes cast with 18,806 voters participating in the exercise from 63 polling stations according to EC.
Speaking to NBS Television, FDC’s Erias Lukwago described the election as “thuggery”.
“Thuggery has happened today. There was no election today. The whole of Soroti was turned into a battlefield. It’s been horror, nothing else but horror, and it’s regrettable,” Lukwago said.
Attan managed to beat Ariko in the urban setting while Ariko got most of his votes from the rural areas of the city.
Meanwhile the Electoral Commission Chairman Justice Simon Mugenyi Byabakama while speaking before the declaration of results pledged to start Investigations into the matter saying it was unfortunate promising to handle the matter with the law agencies and follow up with the case of a person who damaged a ballot box describing it as an offense since the property belonged to EC.
