Police Halts Voting at Mukono Polling Station

There was chaos at Basiima Kikooza Polling Station in Mukono Municipality on Monday afternoon after a group of voters stormed the polling stations citing vote-rigging.

Led by the Kimbowa Ssonko, the Kikooza village Chairperson the angry voters stormed Basiima- Kikooza polling around 3:30 pm a few minutes to close of the voting exercise after receiving information on alleged vote rigging.

Upon examination of the voter’s register, police and polling agents of several opposition candidates discovered a mismatch between the voting data recorded by the Biometric machines and that on the voter’s registrar.

Basiima- Kikooza voting area hosts 4 polling stations. Two of the polling stations were found  to have registered contradicting information. While the biometric machine at Nak-Num had recorded 92 voters the voter’s register showed that 100 people had voted.  

This prompted Sam Muhanguzi, the Officer in Charge of Wantoni police station to halt the elections until the Electoral Commission- EC rectifies the matter. “We have had to send all voters out of the polling station until the matter is resolved by the Mukono District Returning Officer,” he said.   Kimbowa Ssonko, the Kikooza Village Chairperson told URN that he received information on Sunday night about voting rigging in the area.

“We received information that the polling assistants are issuing out more than one ballot paper to some voters who come and identify themselves with a specific code,” he said. 

Robert Ssekilya, the Area Election Superior, says that there is no cause for alarm. “According to the primary documents, the register and the ballot paper shows that 100 people have voted. However, 94 people have been recorded on the biometric machine which is as a result of network issues. Since the two are balancing there is no reason to stop the election from continuing,” he said. 

Voting at Basiima- Kikooza was yet to resume by the time of filing this story. Other polling stations at Basiima-Kikooza include A-M, N-Z. Ugandans went to the polls this morning to elect city Division mayors, councillors, municipal mayors and councillors.