Electoral Commission Extends Nominations by One Week

Electoral Commission has finally bowed to pressure from parliament and extended the nomination of parliamentary candidates by a week’s time. 

The decision was reportedly reached in a meeting between the Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, Electoral Commission Chairperson, Justice Simon Byabakama and President on the sidelines of the national prayer breakfast meeting held at State House Entebbe this morning. 

Speaking at the closure of the prayer breakfast, Kadaga revealed that the Commission had agreed to move the nominations from Monday and Tuesday next week to Oct 19th and 20th, 2020 to allow aspirants to complete processing their deed polls. 

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She hailed Electoral Commission for accepting to extend the nominations to allow the aspirants to process the deed polls to align their names. Kadaga said the Commission will issue a formal communication on the extension.

Earlier on the Finance State Minister in Charge of Planning, David Bahati informed the audience that they had finally arrived at a solution on the dispute following tense discussions. 

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Electoral Commissioner Chairperson, Justice Simon Byabakama told URN to wait for a detailed statement on the matter when asked to comment on the implication of the extension. On Wednesday, EC said it couldn’t extend the nominations as demanded by parliament, saying it had already scheduled all its activities based on its plans and timing. 

Parliament was particularly concerned that the government had failed to amend the Registration of Person’s act that would exempt married women who take on their spouse’s names after going through the long process of a deed poll.

They argued that it is a requirement that for one to be nominated the name on their national Identity card must correspond with the ones on their academic transcript