Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) on 7 October published a guidance notice on how and where candidates aspiring for political offices in the next general elections should place their campaign posters within the city.
Among the conditions was, not to pin posters on road signs, private properties, street camera poles among other undesignated places. However, none of the candidates from all political parties has followed any of the guidelines thus forcing security agencies to start removing the posters that were pinned in places that were prohibited by KCCA.
While police and the army were removing these posters, many people involved were arrested which raised a lot of concern by Civil Societies citing unbalanced political field for the members of the opposition.
It is from this background that on Monday, the cabinet issued strict conditions to deal with the campaign posters issue in the city.
The conditions set include among others; no poster must be pinned in a direction obstructing street cameras nor on camera poles. No posters must be pinned on traffic lights or traffic lights poles, no posters must be pinned on a presidential home (State House), or on any security offices.
According to State Minister for Kampala Benna Namugwanya, the purpose of these conditions is to restrain politicians from pinning posters all over the city which make it look dirty and disorganized.
“These directives have come purposely to maintain our city clean and also to restrain politicians who had started carrying out political fundraisings on the streets of Kampala with their big posters which at times obstruct people using road signs and traffic lights,”
She added, “Those pinning posters in Kampala City, must make sure that each poster pinned can easily be removed after elections, we don’t need posters that will leave walls or place dirty, we need posters that we will be removed after the election and leave nothing wherever they were pinned.”
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