Nalubowa’s lawyers led by Samuel Muyizzi have appealed to the High Court seeking reinstitution of the initial results declaring Nalubowa as winner.
(It was Unlawful to Proceed With Counting Yet Some Ballot Box Seals Were Broken, Nalubowa Insists)
NRM’s Justine Nameere Nsubuga and her supporters took to Masaka streets and rejoiced over the verdict by Masaka Chief Magistrate Albert Asiimwe overturning the victory of NUP’s Rose Nalubowa who had clinched the Masaka Woman MP seat after collecting 25,443 votes against Nameere’s 20,324.
Nameere rushed to court seeking a vote recount claiming results from eleven polling centres had not been tallied by the EC, and so giving victory to her opponent. And after the magistrate gave a go-ahead to the recount, Nalubowa’s victory was turned over and Nameere got 25,502, while she (Nalubowa) walked away with 23,176 votes, which her lawyers are sharply contesting.
Nalubowa’s lawyers led by Samuel Muyizzi have appealed to the High Court seeking reinstitution of the initial results declaring Nalubowa as winner. The lawyers insist that Magistrate Asiimwe contravenes a decision by the High Court and so should immediately be reversed.
They cited the Winnie Byanyima vs Ngoma Ngima case where magistrate Kibuuka Musoke clarified that once ballot boxes are discovered to have been tampered with, it is meaningless to conduct a vote recount.
Lawyer Peter Walubiri concurred that the Masaka Magistrate erred in law. He advised Nalubowa to seek justice from court to cancel Asiimwe’s ruling, and further advised that she proceeds to an appeal court if the lower court upholds Asiimwe’s ruling.
If all this bears no fruit, Walubiri suggested that Nalubowa could seek redress by contesting the manner in which Nameere got victory, but that in this case, she has to wait for Nameere’s name to appear in the Uganda Gazette.
Lawyer-cum-politician Dan Wandera Ogalo lamented that treacherous rulings similar to Asiimwe’s are now the order of the day, and disclosed that a similar problem had bedeviled Kenya and the solution was an adjustment in the constitution in 2010, and there was a revision the section indicating steps one goes through to become a magistrate, and those found to have questionably come into office scrutinized to sieve out the incompetent.
Grounds upon which Nalubowa filed a petition:
– Nameere’s application for a recount was time barred;
– DR Forms on which the court based to okey the petition were photocopied and not originals, and that no EC official was invited to certify them;
– Nameere had applied for a recount on only 22 boxes and the magistrate ordered for a recount in the entire constituency;
– Court’s decision to give a go-ahead to the vote recount although some boxes had been tampered with;
– While recounting the votes, the magistrate neglected using the packing list which indicates the serial number of the seal used to wrap up the boxes; she also avers that since the voter verification kit system was used in the Masaka voting, the votes should be passed through the machines to ascertain that they are the original ones;
– It was wrong for the magistrate to take leave and entrust other people to do the recounting;
– Recounting was done on a weekend.
UNEB Confirms Recovery of Missing PLE Scripts Found Locked in Headmaster’s Office