By Melanie Aanyu,

The Electoral Commission (EC) has today commenced the registration of women. The exercise is aimed at updating the voter register ahead of the upcoming women councils and committees elections.

At least 84,138 election officials have been deployed to the various stages of elections including villages, parishes and sub-county level where the elections will be conducted begining July 7.

Mr Paul Bukenya, the EC spokesperson, said the officials finalised their training on Wednesday at different EC regional offices before they headed to the field for the four-day exercise.

The current EC programme shows that the compilation of village women’s register will be done between June 10 and 13.

This will be followed by the display of the women’s register at the village level between June 23 and 24, nomination of candidates at the sub-county headquarters will take place on June 27 and July 1.

Candidates’ campaigns for election of the village women committee will take place between July 4 and 6 and polling day for a five member committee will be on July 7.

At least 9.5 million women who registered for the last elections, are expected to participate in the women elections but the number may increase or decrease depending on the outcome of the registration exercise, according to the EC.