By Nathan Eyagu
ENTERTAINMENT/NATIONAL
The election of new leadership of Musicians in Uganda under their umbrella Uganda Musician Association (UMA) earlier on Monday 6th June, 2022 failed.
The elections were canceeled after the online system that was used for voting failed in the middle of the voting process at the main tally centre, at National Theatre in Kampala.
The system required all the registered artists to dial *260# in order to vote for a candidate of their own choice.
However, at 1:00PM, Airtel Users could not access the service, while candidates; Mansor Ssemanda alias King Saha, Ramathan Mutebi alias Lord Bitemu, who are contesting for UMA presidency and Irene Kusiima (Vice President) could not tally their votes.
By the time the system failed, Saha had 56 votes, Cindy Sanyu 126 while Lord Bitemu had only 2 votes.
UMA Electoral Commission Chairman, Mr. Geoffrey Jeff Ekongot introduced a new backup plan of using the website for voting to continue. He however faced negative feedback from various artistes who explained that the backup plan would leave out some voters who had no access to the internet.
At about 4:00pm, the system was restored and the performance of each candidate was displayed on large screens and Laptops.
Saha had 218, Cindy had 309 while last placed Bitemu had improved to 9.
King Saha’s camp were not contented with the new results thus disregarding the results that were produced by the end of the day and thus Ekongot, had to cancel the whole process until further notice.
