Barely a month into office, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) under new chairperson Justice Simon Byabakama Mugenyi has come under fire from the opposition Democratic Party (DP).
The DP Deputy Publicity Secretary Alex Waiswa Mufumbiro today lashed out at the IEC for ‘taking Ugandans way back into the primitive era of lining behind a desired candidate in elections’.
“Even primary schools no longer do that,” Mr Mufumbiro said at the DP weekly press briefing at the party’s head offices at Sure House, adding: “this is an embarrassment to the democratic system.
He however, urged Ugandans to go and vote in the LC 1 elections “in order to break the 13 structure NRM uses to stay in power.”
“It is the concrete that the NRM uses to stay in power and Ugandans should not shun these elections if they want the President out of power,” Mr Mufumbiro said.
Mufumbiro also criticized the NRM government for ‘voter bribery’, saying the ruling party is planning to distribute mosquito nets to the people through their identified potential candidates for LC 1, as a means of securing majority seats at the lowest rung of the Local Council system.
“They are criminally liable for abusing the democratic policy of this country by bribing voters,” he said.
Uganda is gearing up for the village LC 1 elections in January 2017, after the former EC under Dr Badru Kiggundu failed to organize the elections citing lack of adequate funds.
