The Electoral Commission (EC) has rejected the Democratic Party demands to extend the number of days for campaigns in the Butambala parliamentary by-elections.

Addressing a press conference on Wednesday in Kampala, the party DP Secretary general Mathias Nsubuga demanded the commission to extend the period saying that the time allocated for the exercise is too little for their candidate Muwanga Kivumbi to travel all the villages in the constituency.

Nsubuga said that Butambala has eight sub counties divided into 25 parishes with over 174 villages- an area which is too big to cover in a short period of time.

But the deputy spokesperson of the electoral commission, Paul Bukenya says that it is impossible to extend the time because the law provides that for every by-election at the Parliamentary level it should be conducted within 60 days of the falling vacant of a seat.

“The electoral commission is on time and it has sent a list of different programmes that would be run in that period to all registered political parties in Uganda.

The campaigns for Butambala parliamentary by elections would start on 28th August 2012 and the elections would take place on 12 September. The nominations are set on the 20th of August. The seat fell vacant after the Court of Appeal nullified the election of the Butambala County MP, the NRM’s Faizal Kikulukunyu over voter bribery. Kikulukunyu was dragged to court by his political rival, the DP’s Muwanga Kivumbi.