The Electoral Commission has refuted allegations made by Paul Mwiru, one of the candidates for Jinja Municipality East by election, that the National Voters’ Register for constituency has been inflated by over two thousand ‘ghost voters’.
The Commission, in a statement signed by Chairperson Justice Simon Byabakama Mugenyi, also denied that there were 2097 ghost voters on the National Voters’ Register and that 305 others had been wrongly deleted from the Register.
‘The Electoral Commission categorically denies the allegations as false and unfounded’ the release indicates, giving the figure of voters as 29, 973 as at February 21, 2018, as opposed to the 26, 421 for the 2016 elections.
‘The total number of Voters on the Register before update was 28,493. The 2,072 voters Mr. Mwiru alleges are ghosts, were a result of continuous registration by NIRA which was done before the update exercise, and is the difference between the total number of voters at update and the total number of voters for 2016 General Elections,’ the release further states.
The EC also details several other issues it claims were falsely made by Mr. Mwiru, a Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) candidate.
So far eight people including Mr. Mwiru have expressed interest in the Jinja Municipality East by elections ordered by the Court of Appeal, after it threw out Nathan Igeme Nabeta over a ‘falsified victory’.
