Ballot Papers for Presidential and Parliamentary elections arrive in Uganda

By

Gloria Nakiyimba

The first batch of Ballot Papers that will be used in Uganda’s general elections next month has arrived in the country.

They will be used in the Presidential and Parliamentary elections as well as the elections for the District Women councilors.

The initial batch of 16 million ballot papers was printed by a South African company; Paarl Media and were airlifted to Uganda aboard Ethiopian Airlines plane on Thursday.

Electoral Commission chairperson Engineer Haji Badru Kiggundu received the consignment at Entebbe International Airport. Representatives from opposition political parties were also present to witness the arrival of the ballot papers. The Ballot papers were transported to the Electoral commission warehouse in Kampala amid tight security.

The Deputy Spokesperson for Uganda’s electoral commission Paul Bukenya says more ballot papers will be arriving in the country within the coming weeks.

“All centers of production are preparing to dispatch” he said.

The other ballot papers were printed from the United Kingdom and United Arab Emirates, while others have been locally printed in Uganda.

With just 20 days left for Ugandans to cast their vote to elect a new president and members of parliament, preparations for the upcoming election exercise are now entering the final stages.

The electoral commission commenced with the printing of ballot papers for the general elections in December 2015.

“We wish to assure all stake holders that the printing of ballot papers is on schedule” he said.

The Presidential and Parliamentary elections will be held on the 18^th February 2016.

Electoral commission chairperson Badru Kigundu said that the commission is in the process of recruiting and vetting 140,050 personnel to conduct the elections at 28,010 polling stations country wide.

Eng. Kiggundu revealed that the electoral commission has completed the packaging of Generic Materials in preparation for the 2016 General elations. They include pens, strings, stamp pads, polythene sheets, rubber bands, ink pads, oaths, official report books, aprons, tamper proof evident envelopes and indelible mark pens among others.

“The dispatch of transparent ballot boxes, cordoning tapes, basins and solar lamps has already commenced in all the districts” Kiggundu said.

The commission has acquired 32,334 machines that will be used at the polling stations during the elections.

Gloria Nakiyimba

Gloria has experience spanning more than five years in Journalism, particularly in field reporting, editing, newscasting and management. She is currently working with Capital Radio Limited [91.3 Capital FM and 96.3 Beat FM] as Head of News, a position she has held since 2010.

Gloria previously worked as the Kampala Correspondent for Radio France International [RFI] generating local story leads with international inference for RFI’s global audience. She also served as Political Editor for The Weekly Mail Newspaper as well as Online Content Editor for the California based Ugandan broadcaster KubutakaRadio.com.