Losing presidential candidate Amama Mbabazi has submitted video evidence to Uganda’s Supreme Court of what he alleges proves that vote rigging took place during the February 18 presidential elections.

A trial involving a petition he has brought before the Supreme Court in the capital Kampala, calling for the annulment of President Yoweri Museveni’s fifth re-election to the presidency on the grounds of 28 irregularities, begins Monday.

Mbabazi is a former prime minister and member of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party, who ran as an independent during the elections.

The petition respondents include Museveni, Uganda’s Electoral Commission (EC), and the Attorney General (AG).

The video recordings, which he claims contain evidence of presiding officers being instructed by their superiors to pre-tick ballot paper in favour of Museveni, are part of more than 60 additional affidavits Mbabazi has submitted challenging the outcome of the elections.

One of Mbabazi’s affidavits was signed by Fred Amanyire from Hoima District in western Uganda.

In his affidavit, he states that he was appointed a presiding officer for Buhuka Primary School polling station in Kyangwali Sub-county, reported the Daily Monitor.

Amanyire stated he, and other presiding officers, received telephone calls from the Kyangwali Sub-county election supervisor Nelson Atumanya on February 15 inviting them to a meeting which would be presided over by a team from Museveni’s office on the eve of elections

During the meeting Atumanya told the presiding officers that the reason for the meeting was to inform them he had some instructions to communicate to them, which they were to observe the following day on polling day.

The instructions included delaying electoral procedures to ensure that less than half of the registered voters would be able to cast their votes in the time allocated.

On February 18 many Ugandans complained about having to queue for hours in the hot sun to cast their votes, a shortage of ballot papers, and voter slips being verified manually instead of being scanned bio-metrically.

Further instructions to the presiding officers allegedly included closing the polls at exactly 4pm on polling day and not giving or sharing declaration forms with agents of the other candidates.

They were also allegedly not allowed to seal any of the metallic polling boxes after the counting of the votes.

“Upon opening the polling metallic boxes, I was instructed by the said Nelson Atumanya to tick the ballot papers in favour of presidential candidate Yoweri Kaguta Museveni” reads part of Amanyire’s affidavit filed in the Court.

“Due to the presence of the police and military forces in the area, I consequently ticked four booklets each comprising 50 ballot papers in favour of candidate Museveni,” reported the Monitor.

“I was able to make a video recording of the pre-ticking of the votes in favour of Museveni,” said Amanyire.

“A copy of the video recording is here attached and marked C,” Amanyire states in his affidavit in court.

Mbabazi also presented video evidence showing Lt Gen Henry Tumukunde, from the Ugandan military, flying a helicopter branded with Museveni’s posters and stickers to Boma Grounds in Fort Portal in western Uganda.

The landing of Tumukunde’s helicopter disrupted a rally being held by Mbabazi, who had been officially scheduled to hold his campaign rally at the same venue.

Further video evidence showed NRM supporters wearing party T-shirts and defacing and destroying posters of Mababazi in the various districts, where he campaigned.

Last week pandemonium broke out when armed men broke into the offices of Mbabazi’s lawyers and stole lap tops containing crucial evidence and affidavits relating to the petition.

During the “burglary” of the legal offices witnesses claimed that police in uniform accompanied the armed men, a claim denied by the police.

Security guards outside the offices were disarmed, forced into vehicles before being driven outside Kampala, where they were beaten up resulting in several of them being hospitalised.

A number of witnesses, due to appear on Mbabazi’s behalf, were also arrested and detained last week when the pre-trial hearing began.