The chairperson of the Electoral Commission(EC), Justice Simon Byabakama has said the commission is ready to partner with cultural institutions to promote voter awareness.
Byabakama made the remarks shortly after the leadership of the Kingdom of Tooro invited the commission to consider using traditional grass root structures and kingdom events to carry out voter awareness programmes.
The offer was extended to the commission by the Prime Minister of Tooro Kingdom, Benard Tungakwo Ateenyi, during a meeting with members of the commission held on February 24 2022, at the EC headquarters in Kampala.
Speaking to the media, Byabakama noted that the two institutions serve the same people, hence mobilising and sensitising local communities on civic and voter rights and duties and the cause of peace is not a partisan matter.
He welcomed the invitation to work closely with the kingdom’s grass root structures to engage and sensitise communities on their roles in promoting peace before, during and after elections.
Tungakwo described the visit and meeting as part of the kingdom’s effort to create strategic partnerships with key public and private institutions that provide various social and economic services to the people in the districts that form the Kingdom of Tooro.
Tungakwo observed that kingdoms and cultural institutions are key players in Uganda’s development agenda. He that sustainable development can only happen within stable communities, hence the need to work with stakeholders to ensure peaceful and participatory electoral processes.