Election materials delay polling

Feb 19, 2011

VOTING in Mpigi and Butambala districts was calm. However, the exercise was delayed at several polling centres due to late arrival of polling materials.

By vision reporters

VOTING in Mpigi and Butambala districts was calm. However, the exercise was delayed at several polling centres due to late arrival of polling materials.

At Police Centre N-Z polling station in Mpigi, voting started at 9:00am. Lydia Nakibuuka, the presiding officer, said the officials waited for police constables before starting the exercise. She also said some names were not on the register.

But the district police commander, Barbara Alungat, dismissed the reports, saying the police could not have delayed the exercise, since they were the ones who delivered the materials from the registrar’s office.
At Butambale Katende N-Z in Butambala, voting started at 7:30am. The presiding officer complained that many people did not know how to vote.

She also complained that some names in the register were not in alphabetical order, which complicated their work.

The Education minister, Namirembe Bitamazire, cast her ballot at Kibuga Church of Uganda at 12:00pm. She said she was confident of a win.

Makindye, Kampala

Although there was a high turn-up of voters in Makindye Division, some polling stations did not have voting materials up to 10:30am.

The delay in the delivery of voting materials threw a few voters into chaos, but with the intervention of presiding officers and the Police, calm was restored.

Affected areas included Jack and Jill Nursery and Primary School and Kisaawe-Kabalagala.

Voters in each of the two polling stations, whose surnames begin with A up to M, did not have their voting materials ready, except for the register. Close to about 2,500 voters at both polling centres were affected.

The Kabalagala division Police commander, Wesley Nganinzi, quickly stepped in and restored calm.

The split of the registers also caused a one-hour delay at some of the polling stations, located at Molly and Paul in Makindye.

Meanwhile, there was heavy deployment of Police at all polling stations which had chaos. But many of the polling stations had one or two unarmed police constables.

Kirinya, Wakiso

Some people were turned away at Kirinya Church of Uganda polling station, when they were told their names were not on the register. Most claimed they had confirmed that there names were on the register, but were surprised to find that they were not.

However, because there were over five polling stations at the same venue, most of the names were on other lists within the same venue.

Rubaga, Kampala
Most polling stations received voting materials after 9.00am.
By that time, hundreds of enthusiastic people had already lined up, waiting to vote.

Rubaga South MP candidate Ken Lukyamuzi said he was upset by the delay and attributed it to incompetence of the Electoral Commission.

Mutungo, kampala

People arrived at the polling station as early as 6:00am. By 7:30am, there was a crowd, but the voting materials had not arrived. Some people went away without voting. The materials came at 8:30am

Kololo, kampala

Voting was orderly and the voting materials had arrived by 8:00am.

Compiled by Conan Businge, Joyce Namutebi, Henry Sekanjako and
Nelson Naturinda

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