Uganda fixes date for presidential candidate nomination

The Ugandan Electoral Commission (EC) has fixed December 14 and 15, 2005 for nominating presidential candidates for the 2006 elections.

EC Chairman Engineer Badru Kiggundu made the announcement on Friday in Kampala after a day-long meeting by the commissioners, according to state-owned The New Vision on Saturday Kiggundu also announced that the nominations for the parliamentary candidates would be on January 12 and 13, 2006. The nominations for the district chairpersons will be on December 19 and 20, 2005, while the sub-county, city and municipal council

nominations will be on November 22 and 24 this year, Kiggundu said.

The chairman said a complete roadmap including the polling dates for the different elections would be announced "on due course."

He said, as many political parties would participate in the 2006 elections, it was not the commission's powers to kick out some parties.

But for the presidential candidates, Kiggundu said the commission had tentatively budgeted for facilitation of five presidential candidates.

He said so far, the EC has registered 8.5 million voters but added that it was ready to handle 12 million voters.

Kiggundu also said the commission was still suffering a budgetary shortfall of 40 billion shillings (22 million US dollars)to organize the elections.

He said the EC had budgeted 70 billion shillings (38.6 million dollars) for the polls and the referendum on change of political parties but the government just provided 30 billion shillings (16.6 million dollars).

Kiggundu said the commission was talking to donors for more funds and that he expected them to respond better than they did for the referendum.

Source:Xinhua