President Yoweri Museveni, who is also the National Resistance Movement (NRM) party national chairman, has directed that all members of the party whether registered or not, will participate in the party primary elections slated for Friday.
The primaries are for parliamentary flag bearers for positions of district woman representatives and constituency MPs.
The President’s guidance follows numerous complaints voiced from different regions, as some members expressed concern of being disenfranchised, saying that their names are missing on the voters’ register yet they are bonafide members of the party.
Mr Museveni’s guidance overturns the earlier guidelines issued by the party’s electoral commission. While issuing the guidelines on Tuesday, the party’s EC chairperson, Dr Tanga Odoi, said there would be no addition and deletion of names during the display of the NRM voters register.
“All NRM members whose names get added during display of the register will not be allowed to vote in NRM primaries. All NRM members whose names get deleted during display of the register will be allowed to vote in NRM primaries,” the party electoral commission stated in the guidelines.
However, Mr Museveni, in his guidance issued on September 2, said any member whose name is not on the party register will be added and allowed to vote, as long a person is of age (18 years and above) and has been verified as a member of the party by the village executive committee.
“Where there are no registers, the branch (village) executive committee shall verify and register all members eligible to vote,” he said.
“This activity can be handled transparently and either prior to or on the voting day by the branch and should not be the source of conflict. Copies of registers used should immediately after this exercise be forwarded to the Secretary General of NRM,” he added.
The polling exercise will be conducted in 151 NRM districts, 351 constituencies and 69,075 villages which are also the NRM polling stations.
“I urge all party members to ensure they conduct this exercise lawfully, in an orderly manner and observe SOPs,” Mr Museveni said in a tweet on Thursday.
The Friday exercise will be conducted by lining up according to the guidelines by the party’s electoral commission.