Journalist Solomon Sserwanjja has been elected Local Council One (LC1) chairperson for Bamutakudde village in Kyampisi sub-county, Mukono district, after defeating his closest rival by a single vote in a tightly contested election.
Results from the Tuesday polls show that Sserwanjja garnered 106 votes, narrowly edging National Unity Platform (NUP) candidate Badru Lule, who secured 105 votes.
The election was part of the nationwide LC1 polls conducted across more than 71,000 villages, marking a return to grassroots voting after years of postponements that had drawn public concern.
Ahead of the elections, Sserwanjja pledged to personally facilitate his Local Council committee members with allowances, arguing that village leaders dedicate significant time to community service and deserve compensation.
“I come from a rich village, and I will personally pay my committee members because leaders should not expect people who do the donkey work and spend an entire month in the office to serve without pay,” he said during a recent media briefing.
The latest polls come eight years after the last nationwide LC1 elections held on July 10, 2018, which were themselves conducted 17 years after the previous vote in 2001.
Since 2018, Parliament has extended the tenure of LC1 leaders six times, each extension lasting six months, as the country delayed fresh village-level elections.
Uganda’s Local Council system dates back to 1986, when President Yoweri Museveni and the National Resistance Movement introduced the then Resistance Councils to promote grassroots participation in governance.
The first elections under the system were held in 1989 using the lining-up voting method, where voters stand behind their preferred candidates, a system that remains in use in LC1 elections.
