With Just a few days to the elections of the special interest leaders, political parties have geared up the process of nomination and grooming of their special interest candidates.
According to the revised national electoral roadmap, the nomination of candidates for committees of village special interest groups comprising the elderly, persons with disabilities and youth will be conducted from July 29 to August 5 and elections will take place on August 11, 2020.
While addressing Journalists on Friday, July 10 Jotham Taremwa, the Electoral Commission spokesperson, revealed that the commission is maintaining the set dates.
“We are maintaining this roadmap and nothing has changed, so the parties must work within the timeline to ensure that they are represented,” he said.
In the same vein, the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party has announced that it will kick off the internal electoral process on Monday with issuing out of forms to those interested.
“I want to call upon all the stakeholders who want to represent the PWDs, the youths and the older persons to immediately start organising themselves. Next week they will pick the forms, we shall send the forms to the countryside; they will fill them and the elections will go on,” Dr Tanga Odoi, the NRM electoral commission chairperson, said.
The Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party president, Patrick Amuriat Oboi said their chapters across the country are identifying the aspirants who are interested in contesting for the electoral positions on the party ticket.
For the Democratic Party(DP), the vice president, Mukasa Mbidde, told Journalists that they are currently conducting the primaries at the district offices.
As a result of the virus-induced lockdown, the Uganda Electoral Commission had suspended the program for the election of special interest groups (SIGS) Committees which included; old persons, persons with disabilities and the youth from village to national level that was scheduled to commence with nominations of candidates in April 2020.