Ugandan poll delay welcomed

President Museveni on the campaign trail

By Anna Borzello in Kampala

The news that Uganda's presidential elections are to be pushed back five days has been met with near unanimous approval.

Reverend Grace Kaiso, chairman of the independent Election Monitoring Group said: "We think for the sake of the credibility of the exercise it was an appropriate decision."

A member of President Yoweri Museveni's camp said he felt the whole campaign process had been rushed, and any extra time was welcome.

Dr Kizza Besigye: Museveni's main rival in the elections

The Dr Kizza Besigye task force was also happy, not least because it means their candidate will have an extra five days to campaign.

That will mean that Dr Besigye can get in extra visits previously squeezed off his schedule.

Register problems

The date change will also give more time to the country's Electoral Commission, which is lagging behind in the distribution of voters' cards.

The decision to reschedule voting was reached on Thursday in a meeting between the Electoral Commission and representatives of the six candidates.

The move was deemed necessary because only three days had been allocated to update the voters' registers which are known to be flawed.

Under the new arrangement, the registers will be displayed for an extra two days.

It is hoped that this will be enough time to clean up the registers, which are believed to have over one million more names than there are eligible voters in the country.

The Electoral Commission blames this on double registration and the listing of dead, underage and foreign voters.

This is the second time the election date has been changed.

It was originally set for 6 March, but then pushed back because it fell on a Muslim holiday.

The latest change, however, is definitely the last. By law 12 March is the very final date the presidential elections can be held.