The Electoral Commission (EC) on Wednesday began handing out final printed copies of the national voters register to presidential candidates, a move that came only hours after opposition figures publicly accused the body of dragging its feet in breach of the law.
Officials from the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) were the first to receive their copies in the morning, with representatives of the National Unity Platform collecting theirs later in the afternoon. The exercise follows complaints from several candidates who said the delay had denied them adequate time to scrutinise the register ahead of next week’s polls.
According to the law, the commission is required to issue the final voters register to participating parties and candidates at least two weeks before polling day.
The distribution, however, is taking place just days before the January 15, 2026 vote, when Ugandans are due to elect a president and members of parliament.
Speaking during the handover, the commission’s spokesperson, Julius Mucunguzi, said the electoral body remained focused on delivering what he described as a credible and transparent election. He said the register was being released in batches, organised by region and district, to allow candidates or their agents to verify the contents.
“The commission has commenced the issuance of the hard-copy national voters register to presidential candidates in line with the law,” Mucunguzi said. He added that the register covers more than 50,000 polling stations nationwide and runs into roughly one million pages, each page containing voter details and photographs to be used on polling day.
Mucunguzi said each candidate or their representative was required to physically check the documents before taking custody of them, a process he said could take up to three hours.
The timing of the release drew sharp criticism from the opposition. Alex Rovans, an aide to the NUP secretary general who received the register on behalf of the party, said the delay had severely limited the time available to analyse the data and flag irregularities.
He said the party had previously raised concerns about duplicated names, including more than 1,500 alleged cases in Kampala Central constituency alone, without receiving a satisfactory response.
The controversy comes weeks after the EC published an updated voters register on November 26, showing a sharp increase in registered voters from 18.1 million in 2021 to 21.6 million across 50,739 polling stations.
On Tuesday, NUP secretary general David Lewis Rubongoya wrote to the commission demanding compliance with the law on the release of the register.
Eight candidates are contesting the presidency, including the incumbent Yoweri Museveni, opposition leader Robert Kyagulanyi, Mugisha Muntu of Alliance for National Transformation (ANT) and Nathan Nandala Mafabi of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC).
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