MAKERERE – The 2019/2020 Makerere guild elections kicked off Friday, March 1, with eleven aspirants in the race, confirmed university electoral commission.
The contestants include, Taliwaku Andrew of NRM, Namuddu Milly of FDC, Kateregga Julius of UYD, and those who are independent include David Musiri, Emmanuel Agaba, Joshua Mukisa, Winter Nsimire, Osbert Arinda, George Mutumba, Donald Munanu, and Umar Wageya.
Campaigns started at around 5:40 pm contradicting with the program of the electoral commission as the campaigns had to start at exactly 5:00 pm at Complex hall and ended at around 7:20 pm.
The different aspirants went ahead to prove that each of them is better than the other as they presented their manifestos and each of them was given four minutes.
As it is the ‘culture’ at Makerere University, before any aspirant was given a chance to speak to the students, they were told to ‘respect culture’ by Mr. Kato Martin the PRO of the electoral commission and the culture was to drop money in the different boxes placed in front of each of them.
Most of the aspirants talked of the change they want to bring to the ivory tower citing change of administration as the main issue.
Mr. Taliwaku Andrew the NRM’s flag bearer said whatever the administration can possess, he can possess it twice. “If the policymakers say they have the police, I have access to the police, if they say they have the army, I too have the access to the army, if they say they have access to the president, I also have access to the president,” he said.
The campaigns went on peacefully until the camp supporting Mukisa Joshua wanted to start up chaos because their candidate was not given enough time to speak. “The DJ has disorganized the microphone intentionally, there’s no problem with it, it’s just planned,” said an angry student who preferred anonymity.
However, the police were in place and restored peace again.
The students turn up has been quite big because many of them attended these campaigns.
The campaigns are scheduled to end on Thursday, March 14 and the elections shall take place on Friday, March 15.