Presidential ballot papers arrive amid queries from Opposition

KAMPALA.

Presidential ballot papers arrived in the country on Thursday, 20 days to the presidential elections amid concerns from the Opposition actors about the transparency of the process.

The plane carrying 163 pallets containing 67,000kgs of ballot papers touched down at Entebbe International Airport at 1:30pm. The consignment was received by Electoral Commission (EC) officials, with four of the eight presidential candidates represented and election observers, among others, present.

The concerns
Several concerns were raised by the presidential candidates’ representatives. For example, EC chairperson Badru Kiggundu could not tell the country the exact number of the ballots or booklets that were printed for the February 18 polls. He instead promised to consult with his technical team and get back to the stakeholders.
Dr Kiggundu said the EC had printed about 16 million ballot papers for 15,277,196 voters. He explained that the excess number of ballot papers would cater for such things as spoilt votes.

“What I want to assure you is the package going to a polling station will be well encased and will be only opened at the polling station. They are already pre-packaged; there is no one who is going to remove, say 10 of them and add them to another polling station,” he said.

But some of the representatives of the candidates were not convinced. Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) electoral commissioner Michael Kabaziguruka said it was impossible for them to make an audit trail on the ballots since they are already pre-packed
“The chairman of the Electoral Commission is the returning officer for the presidential election. If he is not able to tell how many ballot papers have been printed, who knows? It raises suspicion. In the last election, these ballot papers were not sealed as they have done in this one. We were able to look at the serial numbering, among others, as they were being packed,” he said.

The same issue was raised by Go Forward’s Ellis Katazza. “There are some hiccups with regard to the whole process right from printing to the delivery. If you cannot give us the definite number of ballots, then it arouses some suspicion because this is public information,” Mr Katazza said.

More questions raised
Ms Carol Kugonza, the secretary general of the People’s Development Party (PDP), who represented Mr Abed Bwanika, said: “We don’t know how much was loaded on the plane and how much is going to be delivered in Banda. We are putting trust in the Electoral Commission since it is an entity that was put in place to do the job,” she said.

However, the ruling NRM deputy secretary general, Mr Richard Todwong, said the party was satisfied with the EC’s promise to avail the information later.

“As a party, we have no reason to doubt what they have communicated. So we are waiting for the next consignment to come so that we witness and we are also going to follow where they are going to store these ballot papers. We shall be monitoring from now to the voting day,” he said.

PENDING CASE
The ballot papers are to be stored in an EC warehouse in Banda near Kampala where candidates’ representatives will be allowed to monitor their storage. Ms Paarl Media of South Africa is yet to deliver ballot papers for parliamentary and district woman councillors.

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