EC urges people to participate massively in women council elections
Over shs2.5 million voters are expected to be added to the voters' register in the next election cycle, and these will mainly comprise of youth who will be eligible to vote.
This comes as the Electoral Commission(EC) kicked off a 10-day exercise to verify and confirm all the administrative units (villages and parishes) across the country.
According to the Chairperson, Electoral Commission, Justice Byabakama Mugenyi Simon, the field exercise will start today, Thursday March 17 2022 and will be concluded on March 26 2022 in all districts and cities across the country.
During the elections of Administrative Units (LC 1 & LC2) and Women Councils and Committees in 2018, Byabakama said the Commission received several petitions challenging the legal establishment of some villages and cells.
He said while featuring on NBS TV's Breakfast Meeting that there were also disputes about the names and boundaries of some units, adding that the commission received complaints about the placement of some villages within particular sub-counties.
"We have started the verification of the villages, and it will last 10 days. After we have verified the villages, we are going to pin the list at the sub-county for people to identify whether their village has been captured. The purpose of the exercise is to mitigate issues that may arise before we have advanced in the process,"said Byabakama.
For the women council elections, Byabakama said every village is a constituency and the verification exercise is aimed at resolving the contestation.
The exercise will involve holding consultative meetings with the respective district/city local government’s leaders to compare their lists of units with the Commission’s database to confirm their particulars and generate a harmonised compilation.
According to Justice Byabakama, the verification exercise will enable smooth preparations for the conduct of Women Councils and Committees elections (from the village to the national level) scheduled for June-August 2022, and the Administrative Units (LC 1 and LC 2) Elections scheduled for 2023.
He said the commission is going to generate a register of people who are willing to participate in the women's election as voters and candidates.
“You don't need academic documents to participate in the Women Council elections.If you have your National ID, you are already a confirmed citizen. If, for some reason, you misplaced your National ID, you can still go and prove you are a citizen of Uganda by presenting your NIN. You can also present your voter slip, ”said Byabakama.
The Women Councils and Committees and Administrative Units (LC1 & LC2) Elections OF 2018 were conducted in a total number of 60,800 villages/cells and 8,387 parishes/wards, which have since increased to 10,594 parishes and 70,512 villages.
