By Halima Athumani

KAMPALA

 Uganda's electoral commission has set dates for accepting nominations for 2016 presidential elections.

"We are in the course of implementing the roadmap for the 2015/16 general elections and have thus set Oct. 5 and 6 of this year for [accepting] presidential nominees," Biribonwa Joseph, acting electoral commission chairman, told journalists in Kampala on Wednesday.

The commission has set Feb. 12 to March 12 of next year as the polling period for presidential, parliamentary and local government polls.

Uganda holds elections every five years, with the last being held in 2011, when President Yoweri Museveni won his third term in office.

Museveni has ruled the country since 1986.

Joseph said that, for the purposes of transparency, the commission would allow international and local observers to monitor the electoral process.

"We, therefore, invite written expressions of interest from individuals and duly registered national organizations and institutions who wish to observe the said processes," said the spokesman.

He asserted that all international applications must be channeled through the Foreign Ministry.

Registration update

As part of its preparations, the election commission will update the national voter register, starting April 7 at update stations in parishes throughout the country.

The exercise, which will run from 8am to 6pm every day including weekends, is scheduled to end on April 30.

"The purpose of the general update exercise is to register eligible Ugandan citizens of 18 years and above who are not yet registered to vote," Joseph explained.

He noted that those who had registered during a mass enrolment exercise for national IDs – from April 2014 to January 2015 – and had been successfully verified as Ugandan citizens would not be required to re-register.

"The electoral commission has already extracted their particulars from the National Identification Register for the purposes of compiling and updating the national voter register," Joseph said.