Electoral commission (EC) is set to have a transparent local council (LC) election process following sufficient framework that was employed for people to participate in the country wide exercise, Electoral Commission Chairperson, Justice Simon Mugenyi Byabakama has said.
Appearing on NBS Television, Mr. Byabakama said they had transparent process in the organisation of the exercise, “This is the first time we(his leadership) are conducting elections by queuing behind our favorite candidates, let us give it a chance and see how it turns out,” added.
He said the country has 6800 villages and each village is a polling station however between 3800 to 4000 villages are likely to miss this exercise because they were not included in electoral commission’s data. He faulted local council leaderships for not including them in district local government’s data saying EC will avail them a program to elect their leaders too.
“LC elections will shape country’s politics and in five years to come, people might want to go back to this method because of how it worked out,” he said
He said due to urgency for legal LC leaders and unavailability of funds, government availed them shs22billion to conduct the process and implored citizens to participate in the exercise.
After the announcement of winners at each polling station, Byabakama said the newly elected chairman will be given a chance to appoint a committee that he will be working with.
LC I elections were last conducted in 2001 and have been in abeyance for three electoral cycles in 2006, 2011 and 2016, reportedly due to lack of funds.
And, after finalizing election processes, in November last year, High Court Registrar Sarah Langa issued an interim order blocking EC from organizing LC elections following petition filed by a ‘concerned citizen’ James Tweheyo contending that holding of LC elections would disenfranchise O and A level students, who are currently sitting for their exams.