President Museveni and the Electoral Commission have agreed on having scientific elections. In a meeting between the two, a resolution was taken to have the 2021 presidential campaigns held scientifically should the COVID-19 pandemic persist.

This website has learnt that the meeting that was held at State House Entebbe on Friday, June 13 insisted that the earlier plans of holding elections between January and February the coming year should not be postponed despite the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to a source in the meeting, President Museveni and the Electoral Commission agreed that to ensure the process of campaigning and elections proceed, respective candidates will be required to campaign using the novel digital tool Zoom or do the campaigning through different broadcast channels like radio and televisions in Uganda.

However, the two parties cognizant of the fact that only 11 million Ugandans out of the 45 million Ugandans are able to access the internet, of which only a little over 2million can ably access zoom or social media channels, with the most located in urban towns in Uganda decided to find means of engaging voters in rural and hard to reach areas.

“The government will set aside Shs 380 billion shillings to buy at least 10 million radios for distribution across the country specifically to people with radio access needs. The government will buy over 137,000 TV sets which will go to villages, with two television sets allocated to each of the 68,773 villages,” a source that preferred anonymity said.

The money for television sets, however, will be tied to that of the ministry of education, since the TV sets were already in the pipeline for distance learning.

Ugandans will be required to wear face masks while watching the scientific campaigns on television in a bid to curb the transmission of the novel coronavirus.

In an interview with local television, President Museveni recently stated that it would be madness to conduct elections when the world is still battling with Covid-19.

“If the virus can stop around June, Then we can have elections. we don’t have to have a long period of campaigns, Elections are not a big issue, we can organize quickly.” Museveni said.