At the moment, @Makerere administration is facing a challenge that it has either recognized or not recognized yet on the ways in which the electral process is conducted.
As an aspirant in the 92nd Guild Presidential elections at the mighty hill, it has come to my attention that most of the students at the hill most especially those from the sides that did not make it to the seat, have continued to raise statements about how the administration holds this e-voting system. The most complaint is that, for most of the elections that have been held at the hill, have not been free and fair. In this, the students say that for a student or an aspirant to win this seat, must be on good terms or "CUDDLE" with the administration because they're the people in charge of the system.
Due to these complaints that seem to have been unanswered over the years,they have continued to bring about the following;
1. Lower voter turnup: In this, @Makerere has a total population of over 35,000 students but for the past years, the winning candidates have not been even making even 50% of the total number of students that are eligible for voting.
2. High monetization of the process: The rate at which @Makerere politics have been monetized is really worrying. In this, a candidate or an aspirant has to give people money so as to access their portals and vote for themselves. Now just assume an aspirant, that doesn't have enough funds to sustain all those sums of money but he or she is a capable leader, this has continued to kill the dreams of those who come from humble backgrounds.
3. Opaqueness of the process: Since the system is only understood and run by the administration, students continue to raise cases of vote rigging because most times, the results or the tallying is not seen until the evening, even when sometimes the links fail to work and the time for voting is not compensated for those whose links failed to work or had issues. This greatly shows how there is lack of transparency in the process and neither the administration nor electral commission comes to provide answers for that.
4. Bad perception and reputation to the national political environment: The complaint about certain parties not winning has been on each and every student's lips and even those in higher offices, due to the system that is run by the administration and no one else, it simply means that they can easily choose a leader of their choice, and overtime, research has it that some political parties can never win at @Makerere. This has continued to change the perception of not only the youth who are in universities but also at the national level, thinking that @Makerere doesn't support certain parties for the Guild Presidential seat at @Makerere. For example, most of the students say, "ONE WHO COMES UNDER @NRMOnline, CANNOT WIN, WHICH IS NOT THE CASE WITH @NUP_Ug," and it is evident in the past 5 years that, if one wasnt @NUP_Ug, at least they took part in the party card elections and were defeated and decided to come independent but won, which is not the case with other parties like @FDCOfficial1, @NRMOnline, @UYDsecretariat among others.
As I conclude, what I think could be the solution to all this, I think its high time the administration starts training the electral commission which is elected by the students, receive the skills and training on how this system runs so that the challenges of opaqueness, vote rigging, and fairness is sorted. I beg to submit.
@DOS_Makerere@ProfNawangwe@DICTSMakerere@MakerereNews@MakGuild@MakerereAR