Kampala — COL. Kizza Besigye's lawyers told the Supreme Court yesterday that the Electoral Commission (EC) shrouded the tallying and announcement of presidential election results in secrecy, which cost their client a million votes.

Lead counsel Wandera Ogalo said their statistician studied a sample of 38% of the EC's tally sheets against the declaration forms from Besigye's agents and discovered losses.

Wandera identified the expert as Dr. Jonathan Odwee, a senior lecturer in Makerere University's Department of Statistics and Applied Economics. He added that a senior official of the EC admitted that tallying problems cost Besigye 962 votes.

Wandera said Odwee swore an affidavit about manipulation at several polling stations, causing distortions in the announced results. For example, he said, at Kisaasi College School polling centre, Besigye got 317 votes but the tally sheet reflected 0. He said a similar thing happened at Mengo grounds polling station.

Asked how many votes were lost due to the manipulation, he said that was not found out. He argued, however, that Odwee analysed the 2002 Uganda population figures from the Uganda National Bureau of Statistics. Using what he called a scientific deduction, he was able to see the manipulations.

Odwee found it odd that Isingiro district with a population of 202,727 had 94,994 registered voters,

while Adjumani, with a population of 202,290, had just 49,407 registered voters. He asked the court to disregard the EC's statistical evidence that the two populations could not be casually compared without considering the age groups there.

The EC witness said in an affidavit that some of the areas mentioned by Odwee in the North had bigger populations that exploded after 1991, meaning that they were underage.

Wandera also cited President Museveni's home district of Kiruhuura and Isingiro, where he said the voter turn-up was almost 100% which, he said, was odd.

"Counsel, even if you have told us that the witness is scientific, does that not concern human behaviour, that in some districts some people are enthusiastic about Museveni while in others they are not?"

Justice George Kanyeihamba asked

Wandera answered: "We are only lay." The expert, he went on, studied 38% of the result and concluded that Museveni never polled what the EC allotted him. Museveni got 48% and Besigye 47%, he asserted.

Asked why the forms from Besigye's agents were not signed as required by the law, Wandera said some of them were denied chance to do so after tallying by the returning officers.

He, however, admitted the agents did not formally complain as required by the law.

He cited other polling stations where malpractices took place as Kiggundu N-Z, where he said Besigye got 85 votes and Museveni 201. But the tally sheet gave Museveni 210. He said in a polling station in Pallisa, Besigye got 194 votes against Museveni's 156, but the tally sheet gave Museveni 256.

He said at Kasasira Primary School in Pallisa, Besigye got 62 votes and Museveni 321, but the tally sheets reflected 33 for Besigye and 455 for Museveni.