Solve National ID issue before polls – Bishop Ssemogerere

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Catholic Bishop of Kasana-Luweero Diocese Paul Ssemogerere is raising a red flag over the general election due in three weeks, saying a considerable number of Ugandans are about to be disenfranchised.

“Many eligible voters have reported to me that they are failing to secure their National Identity Cards, something that is causing worry as that might be a ground to disenfranchise them,” the Bishop Paul Ssemogerere has said in his Christmas message.

According to the Electoral Commission roadmap, Ugandans will go to the polls on January 14, 2021 to elect the President, Members of Parliament.

Now with just three weeks left for Ugandans to go to the polls, Bishop Ssemogerere says in his Christmas message delivered to the media at his residence of Kasana-Luweero, that it will be unjust if eligible voters are not allowed to exercise their constitutional right of universal suffrage, because they don’t possess National IDs. The prelate has thus asked the stakeholders to address this issue.

However, when asked about how eligible voters will be affected by the lack of National IDs to partake in the voting exercise, Paul Bukenya, the acting Electoral Commission [EC] spokesperson told Uganda Radio Network [URN] in a phone interview that the basis for voters to cast their ballot will be the appearance in the National Voters Register.

Bukenya explains that even some people who have National IDs but are not in the National Voters Register must not assume that they will be allowed to vote. According to Bukenya, the National Register is what will be relied upon because it bears particulars of all eligible voters, in a sense that even those without National IDs but are in the register, will be allowed to vote since even their photos appear there for easy identification.

Updating of the National Voters Register closed in mid December 2019. Since then, going by the national population growth trend, another one and half million Ugandans have attained voting age but are not in the register and will therefore not be able to vote.

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URN