This is why the Registration of Persons Biil, 2014 must be passed urgently
If there is one exercise in Uganda’s electoral cycle that has always bred contestation around elections and election outcome, it is the process of compiling or updating the national voter register. Many times, this contestation has been because of the insufficient time and attention allocated to the making and/or cleaning the voters’ register. We can trace this as far back as in the processes leading up to the1996 general elections. According to the EC’s Strategic Plan 2013-2017, the general update of the voters register at parish level was scheduled to commence in September this year – this is yet to begin. Many times, questions around the independence and impartiality of the EC have been linked directly to the Commission’s actions and inactions in failing to address the problems related to voter registration. In 2001, there were questions around the incredibly high number of voters on the national voters register; out of Uganda’s 22 million p...