The first batch of the Presidential ballot papers arrived on Thursday at Entebbe International Airport at around 1330hrs (1.30pm) aboard an Ethiopian Airlines flight. The 163 pallets with a weight of 67,000 kgs were received by the Electoral commission officials, four election observers and four of the presidential candidates’ representatives who verified the consignment shortly after it was offloaded from the Aircraft.
The presidential candidates’ representatives pointed fingers at Electoral commission Boss Eng. Dr. Badru Kiggundu who could not readily establish the exact number of printed ballots or booklets for the February 18 polls. He instead promised to consult with his technical team and get back to the stakeholders.
Dr Kiggundu said the EC had printed about 16 million ballot papers for 15,277,196 voters. He explained that the excess number of ballot papers would cater for such things as spoilt votes.
What I want to assure you is the package going to a polling station will be well encased and will be only opened at the polling station. They are already pre-packaged; there is no one who is going to remove, say 10 of them and add them to another polling station, he said.
But some of the representatives of the candidates were not convinced. Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) electoral commissioner Michael Kabaziguruka said it was impossible for them to make an audit trail on the ballots since they are already pre-packed
The chairman of the Electoral Commission is the returning officer for the presidential election. If he is not able to tell how many ballot papers have been printed, who knows? It raises suspicion. In the last election, these ballot papers were not sealed as they have done in this one. We were able to look at the serial numbering, among others, as they were being packed, he said.The same issue was raised by Go Forward’s Ellis Katazza. There are some hiccups with regard to the whole process right from printing to the delivery. If you cannot give us the definite number of ballots, then it arouses some suspicion because this is public information, Mr Katazza said.
Ms Carol Kugonza, the secretary general of the People’s Development Party (PDP), who represented Mr Abed Bwanika, said: We don’t know how much was loaded on the plane and how much is going to be delivered in Banda. We are putting trust in the Electoral Commission since it is an entity that was put in place to do the job, she said.
(Additional reporting from Daily Monitor)
