ANT decries heavy security presence in campaign venues

Kampala, Uganda |  THE INDEPENDENT |  The National campaign manager for Alliance National Transformation (ANT), Winifred Kiiza has said that they are failing to interact with voters due to constant presence of security.

Kiiza who is leading General Mugisha Muntu’s campaign says that it  scaring to voters that wherever they go police has deployed heavily.

In an Interview with Journalists in Parliament on Tuesday, Kiiza says that apart from the limited time frame that was allocated to them by the Electoral Commission, they now face a challenge of asking voters to come for the rallies despite being heavily guarded by security.

She says the 60 days given to them cannot cover the 146 districts in the country which she says has required them to travel in many districts in a day which is almost impossible. Kiiza says that the limited time period and the security presence everywhere has affected their ability to reach out to voters as they are not allowed to hold mass rallies.

She says security has also frustrated them from venues, despite advertising and booking for it. She says for instance in Hoima, they were forced to hold a campaign from a different venue instead of the ones they had prepared.

Kiiza says as a result of this, they have cut their campaign time to about 20 minutes per population of 200,000 to try and catch up with the rest of the country.

Kiiza also says that their campaigning abilities have been affected by the poor connectivity is some parts of the country. She says because of the time factor, they have missed campaigning in two districts of Kalangala and Mitooma.    

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