EC to spend Shs1.3 trillion shillings on 2026 general elections

By Olivia Nabaggala

2^nd Aug 2023

The National Electoral Commission has released a budget of 1.3 trillion shillings for the 2026 general elections.

In the budget breakdown 1.24 trillion shillings will be spent on the presidential, parliamentary and local government council elections while 146.8 billion shillings will be spent on the youth, persons with disabilities and older person’s councils including committees from the village to district level.

According to the roadmap, the nomination of candidates for parliament will be held on 16th September 2025 and the nomination of candidates for presidential elections will be done on 2nd October 2025.

The polling period for the presidential, parliamentary and local government’s council is expected to take place between Monday 12th January and 9th February 2026.

The commission projects that by 2025/2026 new administrative units will be created as regions are expected to increase from 12 to 15, districts or cities from 146 to 155, counties from 312 to 350, city division from 25 to 33, constituencies from 353 to 390, sub counties or town councils or municipalities or division from 2211 to 3100, parishes or wards from 10690 to 14,000, villages or cells from 70,512 to 80,000, polling stations from 34,684 to 42000.

The number of registered voters is projected to increase from 18,103,603 to 24,076,900 voters.

While releasing these projections the chairman National Electoral commission justice Simon Byabakama noted that the  drivers of this increment include the increased number of the voter population, increased number of candidates who will stand for elective posts, increased number of elective offices, increased number of administrative units, inclusion of Diaspora and inmates voters implementation of the court recommendations among others .