Uganda: Northern village may be disenfranchised
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Ensure All Eligible Citizens in Apaa Right to Vote; Access to Polls
(Nairobi, December 22, 2020) –Thousands of people in the village of Apaa in Northern Uganda may be unable to vote in the January 14, 2021 elections if authorities do not take urgent steps to update the voters’ register, Human Rights Watch said today. Against the backdrop of a decade-long land dispute with the government, the Apaa community members have been denied many of their rights.
Between November 2019 and March 2020, Uganda’s Electoral Commission sought to update the national voters’ register, including by verifying existing voters and registering newly eligible ones across the country, but it excluded Apaa. Consequently, residents of the area who became eligible or wanted to register to vote since the last elections, in 2016, will not be able to do so in the forthcoming elections. How, and if, Apaa residents already on the register will be able