EC lists for contest 21 mayoral, Local Council posts

The Electoral Commission (EC) has rolled out programmes for elections to fill 831 local government positions across the country. 

The elections are for places where the polls were disrupted or political parties did not present candidates or the office bearers have died.

The vacant positions include 21 mayors for municipal and town council divisions, sub-county chairpersons,  and Kayunga District council chairperson’s seat where the previous leader was found hanged at his home. 

Other positions are for 10 mayoral seats and 11 Local Councils (LC3) positions in cities, municipalities, town councils and sub-counties.
The rest of the 810 positions will be held at different local government levels.

The roadmap indicates that elections for the Special Interest Groups (SIG) will be held on December 15 while that for the district chairperson (Kayunga) and other local government councils will be held on December 16.

The EC programme indicates that the other positions, which are meant to be filled include those for district female councillors representing older persons, the youth, workers, and district male councillors representing older persons, persons with disabilities, the youth, and district workers councillor - general, among others.

Mr Paul Bukenya, the EC spokesperson, told Sunday Monitor on Friday that the EC has embarked on re-organising the voters’ registers in the areas where the elections are to be conducted.
“We are now in the phase of updating the voters; register to remove those who migrated or died. This exercise will take about one week and the EC has started with equipping offices with means of transport and other machinery,” Mr Bukenya said in an interview at their headquarters in Kampala.

Mr Bukenya attributed reason for many of the elective positions for female and male councillors, SIG and others being vacant to several reasons. He said the political parties failed to present candidates for elections in those positions on the day of nominations. 
“There are various reasons, but one of them, without being specific to a political party, is that if by nomination day, the exercise of nomination doesn’t take place, it means no candidates presented themselves,” he said.

“We need to put it to the political parties why they did not present candidates on nomination day. Since these elections based on electoral colleges, there are most likely going to be very many ties,” he said.
“Even if we conducted the elections the following day, the cases will come. So the best alternative is to organise fresh elections after sometime and that is why we are doing this now. Others were simply cases of mismatch and the election was called off,” the EC spokesperson said.

Mr Bukenya called upon political parties which would like to participate in the elections to start organising their camps for the campaigns.  
“There is not enough time for this kind of programme since the EC roadmap is out. We hope the political parties can also do the needful in their various camps,” he said.

Mr Waiswa Mufumbiro, the National Unity Platform (NUP) party deputy spokesperson, said they are gearing up for the election and are in the process of identifying their flag bearers for the listed positions.
“NUP is aware of the programme, especially the by-election in Kayunga District where one of us was found dead in a mysterious manner. We know the will of the people still stands and we shall assert it in the by-election and all the other elections,” Mr Mufumbiro said.

Last week, the commission distributed 50 vehicles and 21 motorcycles to different districts and cities in readiness for forthcoming elections.
EC officials said the vehicles were part of 153 units bought using part of Shs27.7b budget for buying cars and other means of transport, including those used by presidential candidates for the January 14, 2021 polls.

The units include 54 Toyota Hilux double cabin pick-up trucks, bought at Shs9.2b, 46 Mitsubishi double cabin pick-up trucks at Shs8b, two Toyota Land Cruiser double cabin pick-up trucks at Shs553m and 10 Mitsubishi double cabin pick-up trucks for the presidential candidates bought at Shs1.5b.

Other vehicles bought included one Toyota Land Cruiser Prado VX Station Wagon at Shs609m, eight Isuzu FVR trucks at Shs3b, one Isuzu NVR Vehicle carrier truck at Shs333m and 21 Yamaha motorcycles at Shs270m.

“As you are aware, traffic regulations and guidelines set by the Ministry of Works and Transport require drivers to have defensive driving skills. Accordingly, the commission has planned for the training of 165 drivers in defensive driving skills improvement, use and operation of the new vehicles,” Mr Bukenya said.