Uchaguzi: ICT ministry unveils voter information platform

UGANDAN ELECTIONS

With the much-anticipated general election only 13 days away, the ICT and national guidance ministry has unveiled an interactive platform designed to ease public access to information on the forthcoming vote, in the hope that it will help citizens prepare better to make informed decisions come voting day.

The developers have named this voter information platform Uchaguzi, derived from the same Kiswahili word that means election.

"We went for a Kiswahili word because it is neutral - and given Uganda's aspirations for an integrated East Africa, we found it fitting," said Awel Uwihanganye, the project team leader, during Friday's unveiling at the ministry's headquarters in Kampala.

He is the head of the ICT ministry's Government Citizen Interaction Centre (GCIC), which implemeted the project in partnership with Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) and the Electoral Commission.

The new platform has three digital assets - website, app (mobile) and chat-bot - and the same information is syndicated across the three channels.

Uwihanganye is seeing this project as their way of "supporting the mandate of the Electoral Commission" by "reinforcing their own efforts" in the context of voter education and  sensitization.

"We believe that voter information is essential and we wanted to contribute to creating a platform that is user-friendly, comprehensive, and easy to access and understand," said Anna Reismann, the country director of KAS Uganda & South Sudan.

 She said it is a source of "accurate, trustworthy, and up-to-date information" about this month's election, which will be conducted in an era of a global coronavirus pandemic.

And in the context of a scientific election, the arrival of the Uchaguzi platform will have been seen as timely.

The three-way service, which for now requires an Internet connection to access, has detailed information on the political parties, presidential and parliamentary candidates as well as guidelines on how to vote.

Part of the interface's interactivity is a quiz meant to "pass on learnable information to a voter" by testing their knowledge of the January 14 election - which you can give a go at as many times as you wish.

And at a time when the Electoral Commission is to face yet another litmus test on how the Ministry of Health-instituted standard operating procedures (SOPs) to stem the spread of the virus will be adhered to, the new platform has relevant information on these guidelines.

Just like in past general elections, the presidential race has once again been the centre of attention.

 The contest is featuring 11 candidates, including the incumbent, Yoweri Museveni of the NRM, who is seeking a sixth successive term in office.

 He is up against musician-turned-politician Robert Kyagulanyi (NUP), Patrick Oboi Amuriat (FDC), Gen. Mugisha Muntu (ANT) and Norbert Mao (DP).

The others in the race are Lt. Gen. Henry Tumukunde, Joseph Kabuleta, Fred Mwesigye, Willy Mayambala, sole female contestant Nancy Kalembe and Uganda's youngest ever presidential candidate, 25-year-old John Katumba.

Uchaguzi has information on all of them - and the team is calling on those who can access the platform to help others who are unable to.

"This is a sort of a Bible for the voters. A lot of people don't know what happens in the electoral cycle," said Nicholas Opolot, the assistant project manager.

Bridging knowledge gap

Meanwhile, with the election not far off, the developers of the platform said they have created it to "bridge the citizen's electoral knowledge gap, facilitate voter education and provide a platform to engage with key constituents of the electoral process".

For instance, the chat-bot - an automated messaging service - is powered by WhatsApp, and will allow users to get answers to the most common questions about the elections throughout the day.

And why WhatsApp?

WhatsApp being the most popular messaging platform in the world, "the impact this will have on the Ugandan election will be enormous and can potentially cover as many as 15 million voters", according to the Uchaguzi creators, who have also assured users that their brain child has a data protection mechanism - messages are secured by an end-to-end encryption.

So where did they get all this information on the elections, you ask?

From the Electoral Commission, considering they are part of the partnership - and the Commission has hailed what has come out of their collaborative effort.

"The Electoral Commission appreciates the efforts of the Government Citizen's Interaction Centre (GCIC) at the Ministry of ICT & National Guidance, in reinforcing the EC efforts of educating and sensitizing voters ahead of the forthcoming general elections," said Mulekwah Leonard, the EC's acting secretary.

For now, you can only download the app from the platform's website, as the developers await approval for it to also be available on Google Play Store (Android) and App Store (iOS).

It is understood the chatbot is not ready yet - but it will soon be.