Makerere e-voting system locks out freshers as police, army deploy.Friday, April 14, 2023.
Several first year students at Makerere University main campus were blocked from voting in the ongoing virtual guild elections.
The online system of voting at the university was first adopted in 2020 and also used in 2021 during Covid-19 pandemic.
Following the death of one Betungura Bewatte, a second year Bachelor’s of law student of Uganda Christian University (UCU) who was stabbed during 2022 Makerere University’s guild election in July 2022, the university council drafted a new students’ guild statute 2022, in which all physically voting and election activities were suspended indefinitely.
Mr Alfred Kyaze, a first year student from the college of Social sciences, said he could not access the system during the Friday voting exercise.
The voting exercise started at 8amam and will be closed by 5pm.
There are nine guild aspirants in the race after two supporters of the National Unity Platform (NUP), including the party’s official candidate, were disqualified.
The aspirants in the trace are Sabiiti Akankunda, Julius Birigwa, Robert Maseruka, Baraka Nkoyooyo, Oremo Odwee, Mark Ssebunya, Andrew Lubinga, Evans Murungi and Emmanuel Wanyama.
The winner will be replace the outgoing 88th guild president, Mr Lawrence Alionzi.
