Kyambogo university guild elections for today

Mar 21, 2017

According to the university electoral commission chairman, Joseph Ssempagala unlike e-voting system, which failed to work two weeks ago, the university shall use the secret ballot papers.

Kyambogo University is set for the guild president, guild representative councilors and halls chairperson voting scheduled for today. According to the university electoral commission chairman, Joseph Ssempagala unlike e-voting system, which failed to work two weeks ago, the university shall use the secret ballot papers. He said the university has 21 polling stations and 22,000 voters.

"All the voting materials, including the ballot papers are ready and at 8:00am, voting will start," said Ssempagala. He added that polling stations have been organised per year of study of students.

Ssempagala said every student must present his/her university identity card to the election officials and adequately scrutinized to avoid non-university students from voting.

"We shall be verifying students using campus website portal and also the physical registers," he stated.

He noted that most of the students don't participate in voting, arguing that in the 2016 elections out of 19,000 students, only 7,000 turned up for voting, but he expects the number to increase since the university's enrollment has also increased.

"It's is the duty of the candidates to convince students to turn up and vote for them, we as electoral commission we have done our part," he said.

Brenda Owomugisha, the commission's vice chairperson told New Vision that on Friday March 10, the university's electoral commission, guild candidates and the dean of students had a meeting that resolved that a fresh voting be organised as fast as possible since students are soon starting exams.

She said the university management took action on March 14 and set voting to take place on March 21.

On transparency, Owomugisha said during voting, the candidate's agents will be at every polling stations and there shall be physical counting of votes so that rigging allegations don't happen.

"Students should come and elect new leaders and they must observe order," said Owomugisha.

What students say?

Gerald Atwebembeire, a second year student of Bachelors of Arts in education told New Vision that students are well conversant with the ballot paper system unlike e-voting that many students had failed to use.

Atwebembeire said students are ready and will participate in voting although some were perturbed by the cancellation of the previous election. He said during the previous voting, some students said the system had been hacked to rig votes and was optimistic that transparency is going to be observed by the election officials, candidates' agents and entire student body.

Cathy Nanono, a second year student of bachelor's degree in management science said she will not vote. She said she is revising for the fourth coming exams.

Nanono also said voting has side effects such as stress, standing in long lines, quarrels among others that she said can't with stand.

Gerald Nsereko a second year student alleges that the e-voting system was confused by some IT experts so that their favorite candidate wins.

"The other time students were suspicious and that's why some even caused chaos, but now we shall all witness vote counting," he stated adding that it's possible that some students aren't ready to vote.

Daphne Nayiga, a student also said she will not vote. She argued that she was disrupted the previous day and that on the set voting day, she will be busy with other activities.

Candidates' view

Patricia Kishemeire contesting for guild president on NRM ticket told New Vision that some students have lost confidence in the university's electoral commission and that's why some may not turn up for voting.

Micheal Ashaba told New Vision that the cancellation of the last election will not affect the final outcome arguing that it all depends on the candidate's power to solicit votes from students.

What university administrators say

When New Vision reporter contacted the university's dean of students Mildred Tibananuka, she confirmed the voting day but when pressed further she referred the reporter to the university spokesperson Lawrence Madete who said he couldn't talk to media because he's on leave.

On ground

The Kyambogo University guild voting was cancelled on March 7 after the e-voting system that had been introduced failed to work. The students turned rowdy and the university was forced to cancel the elections mid-way.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});