BY Catherine Asiimwe.
The guild electoral commission is to hold a virtual voting with some courses missing representatives. These guild elections are to take place on 19th November 2021.
A number of candidates did not go through the vetting process due to the low voter turn up. This left some of the courses with one or none candidate to stand for the member of parliament past.
A minimum of two candidates are supposed to stand for the member of parliament post, each course is supposed to have two representatives in the guild government.
Courses like social sciences have only one member of parliament that went through the vetting. This is because of the implementation of the virtual system of election.
Last year’s guild elections had a low voter turn up with only 800 students participating in the voting. This year, close to 2000 students are confirmed to participate in the online voting.
With 3,000 new students, and the other continuing students, only about 2,000 students are confirmed to participate in the guild elections.
Lawrence Ndawula, the chairperson electoral commission, says that they have a goal to increase the voter turn up to 10%.
The candidates of courses with no or less candidates that did not reach the percentage needed to go through the vetting will be given time to go back and sensitize their students.
We had given them more time of which they still never made it to the number needed. We shall have a bi-election in the next semester for those candidates that did not go through the vetting and have less representatives in the guild.
The virtual is more efficient because their some students who are off semester and are not physically here. There has also been a low turn up in the physical elections since some of the students are off semester. The online voting is difficult for now but it is more efficient.
The students will have a mock voting day where students will try the voting process before the voting day.
