Why you might not vote in 2011

Mr Okello expects large numbers of Ugandans to fail to register even when Eng. Kiggundu insisted there is no cause for alarm because the EC has set April 15 as the date on which they will launch countrywide updating of the voters roll.

Mao doubtful
This assurance, however, is not enough for Democratic Party president Norbert Mao. “The campaign by the EC to register [people] is lukewarm and many people will be left out.”

Mr Mao’s other concern was about voters who while they will attain voting age by voting day are still not yet 18 years and are thus not allowed to register. In response to this concern, Eng. Kiggundu said: “They are in the wrong age bracket. They have to wait until they turn the recommended age to vote.”

So if the EC is lagging behind schedule, is it a question of no funds for civic education? “People don’t need to panic although they can continue registering at leisure because the April 15, hectic period is soon,” Eng. Kiggundu says.

It will be a one month rush exercise. However, some critics argue that such a short period will result in a repeat of the 2001 mess when late registration of supporters of opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye ended with many them claiming their names were deleted from the registers.

In November last year, donors through the Deepening Democracy Programme said they were pumping Shs5.2 billion into the EC. The money was expected to be spent on voter education, staff training, voter registration and display, and payment of display officers.

More voters
The EC projects to have about 14 million voters on the roll up from the 10.4 million in 2006. But whether this will be attained, or be a true reflection of the people eligible to vote, depends greatly on how the update of the register is managed.

The Constitution variously states that “every citizen of Uganda of 18 years of age has the right to vote.” Speaking to Sunday Monitor, the national coordinator of the Democracy Monitoring Group (Demgroup); an election monitoring consortium comprised of donors and civil society organisations, also observes that the registration exercise has not been well managed.

The general lack of information on what is required for one to get registered and why it is important to do so as alluded to by Fr Arinaitwe, speaks to a failure of the EC’s supposed civic education programmes.

In 2006, the Supreme Court was scathing in its comments on the EC’s conduct of the presidential elections whose result was unsuccessfully contested by Dr Besigye in a petition to the court. Among other indicting statements, the court said civic education was lacking, a similar criticism levelled at the conduct of the 2001 election.

But EC spokesman Willy Ochola yesterday said: “More education will take place in April.”