{The National Electoral Commission has extended the duration of local leaders electoral campaigns to give room to a great number of interested candidates to reach a big population. The decision was taken after realizing that the number of individuals that had picked forms for local leadership candidature was small.
}
Submitting application of candidates at various positions of local leadership started on 4th January 2016 and would have ended on 15th January 2016 but has been to 20th January, 2016.
In a press briefing held yesterday, Prof Kalisa Mbanda, the president of NEC said that the extension of deadline is not the absence of candidates but interested candidates met complications to find required documents.
“We have realized that interested candidates find it difficult to get some documents. This required us to extend the deadline since it would not hamper the timelines of elections,” said Mbanda.
Prof. Mbanda said that the number of candidates is increasing which he, says, gives voters an opportunity to pick the most competent.
Out going local leaders will stop their duties when the list of candidates is released but members of district advisory committees, district administrative committees and Kigali city will continue to work until the final list of candidates is released on 29th January, 2016.
NEC says that campaigns will start after releasing the final list of candidates adding that the law grants two respective term limits for mayors.
It is expected that elections will take place on 8th February at village levels to close on 4th March, 2016 while elections results are expected to be published on 8th March.
The 2016 round of local leaders’ elections will be conducted at a budget of Rwf 3.5 billion.
Leave a Reply