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Kampala – Uganda held its local government elections on Wednesday amid low turnout, as citizens felt the after-effects of the presidential vote chaos last week, reports Daily Monitor.
Some polling stations were left empty, with zero turnout.
Uganda went to the polls on Thursday last week to choose the country’s next leader. However, delays in the delivery of voting material and the mixing of candidate ballot papers left voters disgruntled.
The incumbent President Yoweri Museveni was re-elected with 60.7% of the vote.
The main opposition Forum for Democratic Change’s (FDC) spokesperson, Ssemujju Nganda, blamed the Electoral Commission (EC) for the low turnout on Wednesday, saying citizens lacked confidence in them due to the “uncertainty over the presidential elections”.
Other critics said: “The [presidential] results need to be challenged in court so that people can out-pour their feelings. Unless there is a process that will lead to knowing the truth, expect low voter turnout even in the coming elections.”
This came as the FDC leader Kizza Besigye, who won 35% of the vote in last week’s elections, said that he intended to petition the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, the country’s judiciary announced early this week that it was ready to hear any election disputes, with the Chief Registrar Courts of Judicature, Paul Gadenya, saying the Supreme Court would allocate five to seven judges to handle the petitions.
