The study is about an evaluation of the contribution of Uganda police force (UPF) in election process: a case of Entebbe municipality, Wakiso district (2015-2016) and it was guided by three objectives which included; to find out the effectiveness of the role of police force during the election process, examine the challenges that the police force faces during the election process and propose the different strategies of enhancing a smooth electoral process. The research is descriptive in nature. Out of the 133 respondents selected, 120 respondents participated in the final study implying that the study had a 90% response rate. A structured questionnaire, interview and documentary review were used to collect data and SPSS version was used for analysis of the data. Findings indicates that74.2% of the total respondents strongly agreed that it is the police’s role to manage public order during the electoral process, a majority of 83.3% strongly agreed that the Uganda police is responsible for the security of political participants during the electoral process, 91.7% strongly agreed that the Uganda police play the role of custody and escorting election materials during the electoral process while 61.7% strongly agreed that Uganda police is mandated to protect voters during the electoral process. On challenge of parallel security agencies during the electoral process, 59.2% strongly disagreed. On limited awareness of the electoral laws of the country, 50.8% agreed, majority 65% strongly agreed that Uganda police faces a challenge of eruption of electoral violence while 56.7% agreed that the Uganda police face a challenge of corruption involving police officers. A 60.8% disagreed that there is need to sensitize and educate the public about the role of police, 62.5% agreed that there is need to punish police officers who engage in electoral offenses, 66.7% agreed that there is need to prohibit quasi – military organizations during the electoral process while 55.1% agreed that there is need to improve on the situation of crime prevention techniques to develop capacity to manage elections, The recommendations included: Investigating the formation of troublesome election vigilante groups, a need for continued training of the Uganda Police Force on the various fields relating to the election security management and the entire electoral process, investigate and prosecute police officers involved in violence during the electoral process and adequate provisions to enhance the welfare of the police during the electoral process be put in place.

Research report