CEW-IT joined CCEDU to present the Hoima By Election report to the Electoral commission. Following a successful observer mission to Hoima and other by election in Uganda. Its a requirement of the organisations accredited to observe the elections to present their findings to the Electoral Commission within 6 months. CEW-IT has always supported CCEDU in ICT tools for Election Observation. CEW-IT takes deliberate interest in ensuring that the checklist developed comform to the guidelines of the EC. The ICT tool is free of any data standards comformity thus providing creditable date. We let data support the reporting process. We pay close attention to collection, transmission, security and analysis of the collected data.

Some of the key findings during the Hoima by elections are;

Pre-Election Context:
Update of the National Voters’ Register: According to the National Population and Housing Census 2014, Hoima District has a population of 572,986 of which 287,906 are males and 285,080 are females. Unlike the national figure, the male population in Hoima is slightly more than that of
female population. Hoima district has three (3) constituencies, 171 sub-counties, 70 parishes that make up the district. At the announcement of the by election, Hoima had a total of 148,671 registered voters.Following the voters’ register update exercise held from 12 to 16, August 2019, Hoima registered 143,2732 voters. There was a reduction of 5,398 voters removed from the register for several reasons including transfers and deletions

Candidate Nominations: According to Electoral Commission, nomination of candidates was conducted for a period of two days, Wednesday 28th and Thursday 29th August 2019, at the Hoima district headquarters. The position of the Hoima District Woman MP attracted two (2) nominees; while the 67 lower local government positions enlisted 117 candidates.

Political party participation: Despite the dominance of opposition in the District Woman MP race, the NRM, which is the ruling party has presented the highest number of candidates in the Hoima elections with a total of sixty five (65) out of 119 candidates competing for the sixty eight (68) positions. FDC has registered twelve candidates (12) out of the 119, ANT the newly formed party has presented its first set of candidates – eight (8) in total out of 119, and there are thirty-four Independent candidates out of 119. DP, UPC, JEEMA, PPP and the rest did not field candidates in Hoima district for this particular by election, but instead rallied behind the FDC candidate – at the district level. NRM has registered the highest number of unopposed candidates – 32 out of the 34 positions followed by independents with two (2) candidates. The 34 unopposed candidates will be announced as elected leaders despite the fact that there will be no elections for those specific positions since they are unopposed, except for the district woman representative.

Youth Involvement: Both the NRM and opposition District Woman MP candidates targeted the youth and reached out to them through social media. Platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter were leveraged by mainly the opposition candidate. Security matters and deployment: Several arrests were executed throughout the campaign period. About 10 people were in and out of police cells on account of electoral related crimes. Security agencies played a key role in maintaining peace in a bid to prevent pre-election violence in Hoima. During the last days of the campaigns, a group known as Sipapa entertainment was evicted by security while trying to disrupt the campaign rally of the opposition candidate. Hot Spots: A trends analysis coupled with pre-election observations indicate that Hoima Municipality, Kigorobya and Buseruka are likely to be tense on polling day and security is likely to be tight in these three sub counties.

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CEW-IT joins CCEDU to present Hoima by election report to the Electoral Commission