By Stanley Ebele
Despite peaceful conclusion, the youth village committee elections in Kotido District and Municipality were significantly dented by widespread mobilization failures, leading to a dismal voter turnout and leaving hundreds of positions vacant.
The Electoral Commission gazetted June 16 to 19 as the dates for the election of special interest groups’ village committees.
However, the youth elections in Kotido were marred by low turnout, with many blaming it on poor mobilization by the electoral commission.
A number of prospective young voters said they were unaware of the electoral exercise.
Lilian Achieng, only learned that the elections had taken place during our team’s field visit while another youthful voter, Sharon Akech, attributed the low turnout to “poor mobilization.”
“I’m actually not aware of the youth elections happening today because we were not mobilized,” she stated.
The LC1 Chairperson of Karamoja West Seed Scheme, Josephine Lolojo Tens said the mobilization for the polls was done on Wednesday evening, but quick to add that information about the youth elections was out.
“As the area LCI chairperson, I was contacted on Tuesday evening to notify the residents about the event, which I promptly did. The mobilization was successful, however, our community members sometimes fail to take things seriously,” Lolojo added.
However at Radio Etoil A Karamoja, the announcements informing the public about the special interest groups’ elections were delivered on Saturday 13, 2025 at 2:30pm, just a day to the commencement of the elections.
Besides the mobilization woes, there was a surprising lack of knowledge among some election officials about the activity.
The presiding officers at locations such as Karamoja West Seed Scheme and Lochedimeu in the Central Division demonstrated a concerning unfamiliarity with basic election details, including the contested positions and candidate names.
At Lochedimeu, Presiding Officer Michael Atare took over 30 minutes to provide the names of four unopposed candidates, further indicating a chaotic and ill-prepared environment that likely deterred potential voters.
However, attempts to get a comment from the Kotido District Registrar, Julius Ogwang Ongom regarding the officials’ preparedness for the exercise and poor mobilization concerns were futile as he was engaged in field activities by the time of filing this story.
The nine elected youth leaders in each village constitute a parish electoral college that will vote parish youth leaders who will in turn constitute the sub county Electoral College.
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