Museveni, Ec discuss elections

Nov 01, 2005

President Yoweri Museveni has met Electoral Commission (EC) officials to discuss next year’s general elections.

By Felix Osike

President Yoweri Museveni has met Electoral Commission (EC) officials to discuss next year’s general elections.

Sources said they agreed tentatively to have presidential, parliamentary and district chairpersons elections on February 20, 2006. But as the Constitution provides, it is at the discretion of the EC to fix the polling date.

EC chairman Badru Kiggundu yesterday declined to comment on the matter. “I am waiting for the laws to be assented to,” he said. The Presidential and Parliamentary Elections bills passed by Parliament last week are awaiting presidential assent.

In a related development, Kiggundu, commissioner Tom Buruku and secretary Sam Rwakoojo were called to the Cabinet yesterday to explain the crisis in the voter registration exercise.

Kiggundu and Museveni later visited city suburbs to verify reports that thousands of people missed the registration which ended on Sunday.

Kiggundu told an impromptu press conference yesterday that there would be no further extension due to a tight timetable.

He said he explained to Museveni that the extension would only be possible if the March 12, 2006 constitutional deadline was extended.

“The commission finds itself in a constrained position to consider any requests for extension given the constitutional and mandatory timelines not to mention the incidental logistics associated with such extension,” said Kiggundu.

He said since the elections would be held between February 12 and March 12, the commission would require 49 days from yesterday to December 17 to retrieve, capture, edit and update returns and pack and dispatch the display register.

The commission would then require 21 days from December 22 to January 11 to display the register.

After the display, the commission would need 33 days to clean and deliver the final register for polling day.

“Any extension of the update exercise will adversely impact on the timetable,” Kiggundu said, adding that a two-week extension would cost over sh829m.

Kiggundu said 2,400,000 fresh registration forms for the 32-day update exercise were issued and about two million eligible voters could have been registered, bringing to 10.5 million the total registered voters or 90.4% of adults.

Museveni is reportedly unhappy that many voters are not registered.

The Constitution says the election of the president shall be held during the first 30 days of the last 90 days before the expiration of the term of the president.

Museveni’s term ends on May 12, but he is eligible to stand.
The polling date has to fall between February 12 and March 12.

Under the amended Constitution, the three elections will be held on the same day. Nominations for presidential candidates will take place December 14-15.

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