The Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), has faulted the Electoral Commission for poorly conducting the nominations for the contestants of various positions at the local government in urban areas.
While addressing the media at the party headquarters on Monday,the party spokesperson, Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda said electoral commission failed to do it’s work as expected in Urban areas.
“As you are aware nominations of candidates for the local government are concluding this week on Thursday October 1st. These nominations have been poorly conducted especially in urban centres where the number of councillors are obviously high,”he said.
Ssemujju claimed that some candidates had to sleep at nomination centres in Wakiso, Mukono and other areas while in some extreme cases candidates had to bribe security personnel at the gates in order to access returning officers.
“Midway the exercise in Waksio, the format of nominations changed from first come first serve to allocating days to the constituency. Some candidates are up to now without certificates of nomination,”said Ssemujju.
Ssemujju also claimed that some candidates of the NRM by-passed lines and were nominated first just because they are in the ruling party.
He tasked the commission to investigate these irregularities or else they will be repeated during the general election.
“We need to know the number of meetings and number of attendees local government candidates are allowed. Of course the number of people attending MPs and presidential campaigns should be high,”he said.
He also urged the commission to reign in on police to stop dispersing campaign meetings.
The FDC also expressed its deepest condolence to the family of Al-Hajj Nasser Ntege Sebaggala upon the demise of the former Kampala Mayor.
“Our condolence to the whole nation. Sebaggala will be remembered for inspiring the urban poor and uneducated to participate in the elections,” said Ssemujju.
