The National Unity Platform (NUP) candidate, Rose Nalubowa, has petitioned the Masaka High Court challenging a decision by Chief Magistrate Albert Asiimwe that declared National Resistance Movement’s (NRM) Justine Nameere as the Masaka City Woman Member of Parliament–elect.
On Sunday, Chief Magistrate Albert Asiimwe declared Nameere the duly elected MP following a court-ordered vote recount. According to the results announced, Nameere garnered 25,502 votes, defeating Nalubowa, who polled 23,176 votes. Democratic Front (DF) candidate Juliet Nakabuye Kakande received 6,136 votes, while independent candidate Nanyonga Sauya obtained 5,921 votes.
Through her legal team led by Samuel Muyizzi, Nalubowa argues that the declaration was made in error and has asked the High Court to revise the entire record of the Chief Magistrate’s proceedings and set aside all orders arising from the recount, including the declaration of Nameere as winner.
“We have moved to the High Court to challenge the illegal conduct of the Magistrate. The will of Masaka City must be upheld, and we shall defend our victory to the end,” Nalubowa said.
Muyizzi contends that the grounds relied upon by the Chief Magistrate to declare Nameere winner were erroneous and procedurally flawed. He has asked the High Court to deliver its ruling within seven days, before the statutory deadline expires.
Among the grounds raised is that the Magistrate allegedly proceeded with the hearing and recount outside the legally mandated four-day period after declaration of results and continued with the process over the weekend.
“It was wrong for the Magistrate to disobey his own orders that he would not proceed with tallying if any ballot box was found tampered with. It is on record that he proceeded despite seals on a total of 10 ballot boxes having been broken,” Muyizzi said.
Nalubowa also faulted the Magistrate for allegedly refusing to apply verification safeguards before proceeding with the recount.
“She applied for checks and balances, including the use of a packing list of seals to verify whether the seals on the ballot boxes matched those officially issued by the Electoral Commission. The Magistrate declined to follow the packing list, rendering the process irregular,” Muyizzi added.
The legal team further argued that the court rejected an application to use the Biometric Voter Verification Kit (BVVK) to authenticate ballots during the recount.
“We requested that the biometric voter verification kit be used to ascertain the authenticity of the ballots being recounted, but the Magistrate denied the request and proceeded. As a result, ballot boxes that were heavily skewed in favour of one party were counted without proper verification,” Muyizzi said.
Nalubowa maintains that had the BVVK been used, many of the ballots counted would have been excluded because they were not part of the official Electoral Commission materials.
“We seek orders of the High Court to set aside all procedural irregularities, unlawful actions, and declarations arising from the recount application. It was not enough for the Magistrate to merely declare results; he assumed the role of determining which ballots qualified to be counted without applying lawful verification mechanisms,” Muyizzi said.
The High Court is yet to fix a date for hearing the petition.
