KAMPALA: The Uganda Musicians Association (UMA) Electoral Commission Committee has on Saturday, May 21, 2022, issued a letter announcing the postponement of UMA 2022 elections from May 23 to June 6, 2022, to sort out complaints from association members.
UMA made the postponement announcement through a letter shared on UMA social media pages explaining that the process has been halted for two more weeks.
The action was in response to King Saha’s request to halt the elections. Ssemanda Manisul alias King Saha rushed to court ahead of Uganda Musicians Associations (UMA) Elections claiming he is not content with the process.
According to a letter dated May 20, 2022, released by Lukwago and Co. Advocates, King Saha voiced his discontent of the manner in which the whole voting process is being handled. “There are no reasons whatsoever for conducting the election online and as such, our client objects to online voting,” the letter read in part.
“Without prejudice to (above mentioned statement) you have failed to conduct civic education for purposes of equipping the candidates and voters with technical and basic knowledge regarding online voting.” “You have failed to establish measures to ensure credibility of online polling or to guarantee a free and fair election generally,” added the letter released by Lukwago and Co. Advocates.
Addressing the matter, the UMA Electoral Commission Chairman, Geoffrey Jeff Ekongot said the voting has been pushed forward to streamline the process. He explained that as an association, they recommend more time for candidates to understand the process.
As of today (Saturday, May 21, 2022) UMA is holding an UMA Elections Debate but King Saha who is one of the UMA Presidential contestants is said to have not showed up for the debate.
Posting on Twitter, Fred Mwebya said, “So King Saha Chickened and he did not show up for the #UMAElectionsDebate!! Does he really have the potential to lead the Ugandan artists?”
In response to Mwebya’s Twitter post, UMA responded in a Tweet saying, “as an Association, we formally contacted all our Nominated Candidates for the Executive positions to this Debate!”