NUP’s Nambassa wins Makerere Guild race

Shamim Nambassa is the 87th guild president of Makerere University. She secured landslide victory in the guild polls held on Friday.

Nambasa, who ran on the National Unity Platform-NUP party ticket, garnered 5610 votes representing 54% of the votes cast.

Her Forum for Democratic Change-FDC counterpart and closest rival, Obeid Kamulegeya obtained 1548 votes. Nambasa’s best performance was from the school of medicine where she obtained 481 votes beating Obeid Kamulegeya who managed 72 votes. Makerere University used both electronic and physical voting.

Only first and final year students were present to vote physically because of the staggered mode of learning under COVID-19 restrictions.

Nambassa was able to win the favor of a number of first years who through interviews were not aware of any other candidates in the guild race.

For the finalists, Nambassa had gained popularity from her tenure as the education minister in the 86th guild cabinet where she also doubled as the GRC for the school of public health. She replaces Ivan Ssempijja.

According to Ssempijja, he endorses the guild elect because of the resilience and accountability to students she exhibited during his tenure.

Nelson Ssewanyana, one who stepped down from the race after Nambassa won in the NUP primaries noted that she is the kind of person that gets things done.

William Kananga, the chairperson of Makerere University Electoral Commission noted that despite having to work within a short time of about one month, the fairness of the voting exercise has not been disputed by students.

He however, pointed out that the e-voting system still has challenges to be addressed as a number of students failed to vote.

Nambassa is a third year student pursuing a Bachelor in Pharmacy at the College of Health Sciences.

The others candidates were Ronald Mutsinzi who garnered 1,187 votes, Agrippa Byayesu 697, Bukala Silve 649, Moses Tumusiime 145, Martin Tumuhaise 117, John Mwase 117, Sam Ayeyo 70 and Victor Omega 32.