By KT Reporter
Electoral-related violence has marred the ongoing National Resistance Movement-NRM structures across Jinja city.
By 10:00 am, several voters were filling up areas, awaiting the polling process.
The candidates who are largely women, elderly, persons living with disabilities and veterans went through unopposed, with some positions lacking candidates.
Stiff competition has been manifested in the positions of the youths and village NRM chairpersons.
Polling officials were not reading out voters’ names, creating a lee-way for unregistered persons to infiltrate the whole process.
Motorcycle riders were seen ferrying residents from other villages to participate in electoral areas where they are not registered.
At St. Jude Primary School compound, the election was canceled after rowdy youths accused politicians of using money to divert their support. This particular poll attracted Ashiraf Kato and Shadia Nangobi contesting for the youth chairperson position in Namulesa cell.
The elections attracted about 400 youths, with divided loyalty to the contestants; however, when the village registrars started reading out names in the register, they turned chaotic, resulting in the cancellation of the voting.
At Kagogwa polling stations, Vincent Oketcho and Musa Wandawa disagreed on the register after supporters of both the contestants erupted into fist fights, forcing the registrars to cancel the electoral process.
Some registrars were assigned between five to seven villages each, making them incapacitated of controlling unregistered voters who were moving through different polling stations to forcefully vote candidates of choice.
Also the security was thin on the ground, with most of the black spots lacking visible security personnel, creating a comfortable pathway for electoral-related violence.
One of the parish election supervisors who spoke on condition of anonymity says that, much as they requested security deployment in black spot areas during their preparatory trainings, police officers were never dispatched, creating room for unregulated violence.
He says that this manner of electoral-related violence caught up with some registrars assaulted by the chaotic supporters.
However, the Kiira regional police spokesperson, James Mubi, says that their teams are fully patrolling all electoral areas in the bid to minimise violence-URN. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
