Polls Resume After Jan. 10

Jan 06, 2002

Local Council 3 elections are to be held in areas where voting did not take place on Friday and Saturday, Electoral Commission (EC) officials said yesterday.

By Felix OsikeLocal Council 3 elections are to be held in areas where voting did not take place on Friday and Saturday, Electoral Commission (EC) officials said yesterday.Commissioner Robert Kitariko said the elections would take place after the LC5 polls due on January 10.“Where elections were not held, we shall hold them after January 10,” Kitariko said. The constitutional deadline for holding the LC3 polls was Saturday. Attorney General, Francis Ayume said there was no constitutional crisis. “If the process started and got interrupted due to some intervening circumstances, the Electoral Commission could stop it and continue with it later,” he said. Kitariko said there would be re-election of LC3 councillors in areas where the ballot papers had no photographs of the candidates. Final results for the areas where elections were successfully held are expected to be announced earliest on Wednesday.Voting for LC3 chair persons, directly elected councillors including those representing women, flopped in most parts of the country due to failure by the commission to deliver voting materials in time. However, voting continued yesterday in some areas such as Iganga district, despite Saturday’s constitutional deadline.Kitariko said areas where voting began late on Saturday, were free to continue with the exercise yesterday. “Where they started late and didn’t complete, they can continue. Once you start the process, you must end it,” he said. The EC has blamed the mess on the company contracted to work on the register, Rank Consult, where computer expert Frank Katusiime is a director. The EC said Rank Consult failed to produce a computerised register for the exercise. Rank Consult was contracted at close to sh1b to develop a system where the text and photographs of voters are integrated to produce a photographic register.But Katusiime yesterday denied his company was responsible for the mess. He said his work was to set up the voters’ register, which had been done and that the problem with the LC3 polls had nothing to do with the register but delivery of ballot papers.Ben Wacha (Oyam south) said holding elections at a later date could be unconstitutional. “Even if they amended the constitution, the illegality will have already taken place. You cannot cure an illegality with amending the constitution,” he said The ruling Movement Director of Information, Ofwono Opondo, on Saturday called for drastic action on the chairman of the Electoral Commission, Aziz Kasujja, for “indefensible inefficiency,” in the management of elections. When contacted for a comment yesterday, Kasujja said “I am not talking to anyone,” and hung up. The embattled EC boss also rudely hung-up on this reporter on Friday and Saturday. Opondo said everybody, including the government, was very angry at the inefficiency exhibited by Kasujja’s administration.Independent sources said President Yoweri Museveni called Kasujja on Friday and heavily criticised him.Last week’s elections were marred by numerous irregularities. In the Saturday voting, only voters who registered during the nationwide photographic registration exercise were allowed to vote using certificates issued to them. But the New Vision has learnt that in one parish in Mukono, although photographs of 3,000 voters were taken, the election officials were only able to trace data of eight voters.There are over 940 sub-counties with over 5,000 parishes in the country where voting was to take place.Ends

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