The head electoral management at EC, Umar Kiyimba and the commissioner in charge of western region, Justine Mugabi Ahabwe reveal that the commission plans to start using district and sub county COVID 19 task forces to ascertain desired venues by politicians to hold their political meetings.
Currently it has been the police with the powers to ascertain and give a green light to a venue to be used by any candidate to hold their political meeting.
This has seen a rise in battles between the politicians and police with a good number of meetings ending prematurely or not staged at all hence now forcing the commission to make changes and have the COVID 19 task forces ascertain the venues.
Officials from the commission note that the task forces are well informed of the health situation in the respective areas and are always available compared to police.
Meanwhile, commissioner Justine Mugabi Ahabwe confirms that 56 presidential aspirants have so far picked presidential nomination forms with independents dominating the exercise as of yesterday (19th/08/2020).
According to commissioner Mugabi out of the 56 aspirants, five are women and 51 are men.
She also states that all those who picked the forms are now asked to abid by the set electoral rules as they conduct consultative meetings to avoid the spread of COVID 19.
