Court Upholds Fredrick Ruhindi's Nakawa East Victory, Dismisses Mufumbiro's Petition

The High Court in Kampala has dismissed an election petition filed by jailed National Unity Platform (NUP) candidate Waiswa Alex Mufumbiro, upholding the victory of National Resistance Movement (NRM) candidate Fredrick Ruhindi for the Nakawa Division East parliamentary seat.

Mufumbiro had contested the election outcome, accusing the Electoral Commission of declaring a winner based on incomplete results. His petition cited various alleged irregularities, including ballot stuffing, unusually high voter turnout, inflation of votes in favor of Ruhindi, and the complete exclusion of results from 22 polling stations.

In his ruling, Justice Allan Paul Nshimye noted that while the Electoral Commission indeed failed to include results from 22 polling stations in the final tally, this omission did not alter the ultimate outcome. Court calculations showed that even after factoring in the votes from the omitted stations for both candidates, Ruhindi maintained a comfortable winning margin of over 3,000 votes.

The judge further dismissed other claims of vote inflation and electoral malpractices, pointing out that Mufumbiro relied heavily on uncertified photocopies of declaration forms and failed to produce adequate witnesses to substantiate allegations of direct electoral offenses linked to Ruhindi.

Consequent to these findings, Justice Nshimye dismissed the petition, confirmed Ruhindi as the legitimate MP for Nakawa East, and ordered that each party bear its own legal costs.

For more details on this ruling, read the original report on The Observer.