Ruling party National Resistance Movement (NRM)’s candidate Justine Nameere, the runner-up in the January 15 Masaka City Woman MP election, has filed a petition in court challenging the victory of National Unity Platform (NUP)’s Rose Nalubowa, alleging that some of her votes were not counted.
Through her lawyer, Sam Ssekyewa, Nameere claims that results from 11 polling stations were omitted from the official tally, giving Nalubowa an unfair advantage and affecting the outcome of the election.
According to her application, during tallying and announcing the final results, she raised her objections regarding the irregularities, but the respondent’s agent (District Returning Officer) declined to count the results from the complained polling stations, and the returning officer instead advised her to seek remedies elsewhere.
“Results from some polling stations were improperly tallied and others altered, entering false figures against what is on declaration of results forms, which also affected the final results, and this can properly be corrected through a recount,” the application further reads.
Some of the polling stations said to have never been considered in tallying of results include Kasijjagirwa playground, Kimaanya Centre Church Road, Gayaza primary school, Former Bright Africa primary School, Butego LC 1, Molly and Paul primary school, and Katanga Catholic Church, among other places.
Masaka Chief Magistrate Abert Asiimwe is expected to start hearing the application this afternoon.
During the January 15 election, Nalubowa collected 25,443 votes, while Nameere collected 20,343 votes, Sawuya Nanyonga (Ind) got 6,196 votes, while the incumbent and Democratic Front (DF)’s Juliet Kakande Nakabuye collected 6,343 votes.
Nameere, a former TV/radio presenter, has in the past made several attempts to join Parliament and failed. A decade ago, she contested for Central Region Youth Member of Parliament but withdrew from the race a few days before the election over unknown reasons. She later stood for Bukoto East Parliamentary seat but lost to Florence Namayanja, the current mayor of Masaka City.
