UCU elections: students angered by vetting process

A good number of students at Uganda Christian University (UCU) were yesterday left angry after the university’s electoral commission failed to verify names of their preffered candidates during the vetting process.

The electoral commission was accused of bias for having allowed some candidates to officially start campigns while kicking out others from the race.

“UCU politics is for puppets,” commented a student who was bitter after his candidate failed to make it through. “UCU has only chosen puppets for this race.”

Yesterday,  Desmond Feni, the electoral commission chairman defended his team, saying the process was fair. “We were not biased,” he added.

However, one of the bitter presidential candidates Perez Mwembi, after failing to go through the vetting process, cited bias in the process.

“I was accused of attempting to give the commission a 3 million shilling bribe. These allegations are baseless and not true,” Mwembi added.

He defend himself by quoting from Mr Andrew Kakooza, the chairman of the Disciplinary Committee, who also doubles as the dean from the law faculty.

“The chairman told me I was simply a victim of circumstances,” Mwembi disclosed. The chairman, he said, intimated to him that he was vetted out due to the greed of the former electoral commission boss Bob Himbisa, but not himself to blame.

Himbisa and his team were disolved and replaced last week after allegations that they are corrupt.

However, the victorious students were very impressed by the system. Ivan Nasasira, a candidate for MP Law was happy that his name was on the list.

“It is just amazing that I have gone through the vetting process,” he said.

However, a number of students are again disappointed with having only female candidates in the guild presidential race, with some saying campaigns will be boring.

“Female candidates do not give you morale to even campaign for them. Guys have mob hype during the campaign process and that is what we wanted,” one male student told Campusbee.

There will be a presidential debate next week Friday in Nkoyoyo.