By Kassim Ssematimba
At a Friday press conference convened to signal the commencement of the National Voters Register (NVR) display exercise, journalists rightly asked Electoral Commission Chairman Simon Byabakama to clarify on claims by the ruling NRM party that it has a membership register comprising of up to 20.2m eligible voters capable of casting their ballot in 2026.
NRM’s claim has raised eyebrows given that the country has a total number of 18.1m registered voters as per the register the EC used to conduct the 2021 elections. The same dilemma was even made more complicated a few days ago when the Daily Monitor published a cover page story indicating that the registered political parties were claiming to have a combined total of more than 35m Ugandans to be their duly enrolled members and equally eligible to vote in 2026.
Whereas NRM brags having 20.2m eligible voters, NUP boasts of 10m and the rapidly-cracking FDC claims to have the same number. UPC was put at 6m registered members and ex-Minister Jaberi Bidandi Ssali’s PPP, which has one MP, claimed to have a register of 5,000 members. Others like JEEMA, DP and ANT claimed to still be compiling their respective registers.
Parties claiming to be sharing more than 35m eligible voters created confusion among the population in a country whose total population was disclosed in the recent national census to be at 46m.
It’s against this background that journalists tasked Byabakama to make some clarification given that his EC will be tasked with delivering the country’s new set of leaders via the forthcoming general elections.
This video contains the answer that was given to them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9t-lj166Iw&t=34s.
Byabakama clarified that the EC he heads can currently not tell the total number of people eligible to vote in 2026. He said they can only ascertain that upon the conclusion of the Friday April 15th-Thursday 15th May NVR display exercise. Through this 21-day exercise the EC will be able to involve all Ugandans in verifying and cleaning up the voters register at its more than 38,000 polling stations scattered across the country.
But Byabakama added that no one should lose sleep or be bothered about what NRM or any other party claims to have. He said political parties are free to compile their membership registers the way they wish including having under age Ugandans who may be as young as 16 years. He clarified that the EC is legally not bound to be guided by what political parties have in their membership registers because in some cases, such registers can comprise of people who, by virtue of age, don’t even qualify to participate in national elections.
Byabakama advised journalists to seek more clarification from the political parties and not from his Electoral Commission. He said the EC will disclose the total number of eligible voters on its register at the conclusion of the ongoing 21-days NVR display exercise which commenced on Friday 25th April at 8am.
It was also made clear that, while organizing elections, the EC is guided by the Constitution and other laws of the land and not what is contained in the membership registers of the different political parties the Electoral Body is mandated to regulate for purposes of participation in national elections. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
