Diaspora voting hangs in the balance

By David Lumu

As the Electoral Commission (EC) wraps up the display of the national voters’ register, Joseph Biribonwa, the deputy EC chairperson has revealed that Ugandans in the diaspora may not vote in the forthcoming 2016 general elections.

“Concerning voting in the diaspora, we have not included the guidelines regarding the matter in our programme. We are waiting for Government to guide on this before we make a final declaration,” he said.

On Tuesday this week, the EC concluded the national voters’ register display exercise, paving way for the compilation of the final register for the 2016 general elections.

“The purpose of the display exercise was to enable voters to check the correctness of their particulars on the register, and recommend the removal of non-eligible persons from the register,” he said.

The non-eligible people include the dead, non-citizens, under-age and those who belong to another parish or voting area.

However, Biribonwa said today that the lists of people, who have been recommended for deletion from the register, will be publicly displayed for eleven days—from August 14 to 24—at various parish headquarters.

“The purpose of this supplementary display exercise is to enable any person who may have been wrongly recommended for deletion to raise an objection to the Parish Tribunal,” he said.

Members of the Parish Tribunal are appointed by the judiciary.

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