As voting in a By-election for Hoima District Woman representative in parliament kicked off Thursday morning, low voter turn-up has been reported while in some areas voting was delayed as electoral materials arrived late.
At Hoima Municipal Council polling station, polls were delayed beyond 8:50am following an instance of missing pages in ballot books something that triggered discomfort in voters who turned rowdy. However, election observers from CCEDU reported that voting later started at 9:00am after EC explained that the anomaly came as a result of challenges in numbering of ballots.
Low voter turn-up was also reported in several areas across the district. By 10:25 am, CCEDU election observers reported that 100 of 609 total registered voters at Bwikya Primary School ‘B’ polling station had cast their votes with only 20 people in the line waiting to cast their vote.
CCEDU however reported relative long queues in some areas with people in lines of between 20 and 50 voters on average though assisted voting was prevalent in many areas especially in rural sub-counties.
Isolated cases of violence have also been reported with police battling groups of opposition supporters who chased NRM chairperson for Kayunga District Moses Karangwa who they suspected of having pre-ticked ballot papers. Police prevailed over the rowdy youths and calmed the situation
It is a two horse race for the District Woman MP as NRM’s Harriet Busingye tussle’s it out with FDC’s Nyakato Asinansi in a hotly contested by-election.
