Justine Nameere, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) candidate, has been declared the elected Masaka City Woman Member of Parliament following a vote recount exercise. The three-day vote recount exercise, presided over by Masaka Chief Magistrate Albert Asiimwe and concluded on Sunday night, overturned the earlier results by the Electoral Commission, which had declared the National Unity Platform (NUP) candidate, Rose Nalubowa, as the winner of the January 15 elections.
The Magistrate observed that upon re-examination of all ballot papers from 313 polling stations, the court established that Nameere obtained 25,502 votes, up from the 20,324 votes the Electoral Commission had allocated her in the initial tally. Nalubowa, who, according to the Electoral Commission, had initially scored 25,443 votes, saw her total reduce to 23,176 votes after the recount.
The other candidates, Juliet Kakande Nakabuye of the Democratic Front (DF), were found to have scored 6,136 votes, down from the 6,343 votes initially allocated to her. Sauyah Nanyonga, an independent candidate, had originally garnered 6,196 votes, but the recount indicates her accurate score is 5,921 votes.The presiding magistrate noted that the recount exercise established numerical errors that affected the results during the initial tallying process by the Returning Officer, which substantially affected the outcome and denied Nameere victory. Despite finding the seal of one out of the 314 ballot boxes broken at the time of inspecting the store, the trial magistrate proceeded with the recount, arguing that the tampered box could not have had a substantial effect on the outcome.
Nameere filed a vote recount application in court, alleging that the Returning Officer omitted results from 11 polling stations that she had won, and reduced her scores at various polling stations, which erroneously advantaged the NUP candidate. The trial magistrate held that the re-examination of the ballot boxes satisfied the allegations, thereby declaring Nameere the winner of the polls conducted in the area.
Before declaring the final results from the recount exercise, the presiding magistrate set aside 10 ballot boxes found with various inconsistencies. Seven of the ballot boxes had missing ballot papers, while two contained ballot papers ticked in favour of only the NRM, which was inconsistent with the Electoral Commission tally sheet and records on the number of ballot books delivered and used at the polling stations.One ballot box was invalidated after it was found with a broken seal at the commencement of the exercise. In total, the inconsistencies led to the invalidation of 1,358 votes, which the Electoral Commission tally sheet indicates were cast on polling day.The latest results from the recount suggest that a total of 60,735 voters cast their votes for the Masaka City Woman MP candidates. This figure does not include invalid votes, since the magistrate did not include them in his final declaration, although they were being verified in every ballot box opened. By implication, the final recount figure is higher than the total number of votes, including invalid ones, recorded by the Electoral Commission during the January 15 polls.
The Electoral Commission tally sheet indicates that 59,499 votes were counted on January 15, comprising 58,306 valid votes, 1,193 invalid votes, and 157 spoiled votes. Nearly the same number, 59,342 voters, participated in the presidential election held on the same day. However, the recount figure for the Women’s MP election stands at over 62,000 votes, excluding invalid votes.
Meanwhile, Rose Nalubowa, the NUP candidate, described the recount results as a mockery of democracy, saying she would consult her lawyers on the possibility of challenging and overturning them. “We protest right from the commencement of the recount exercise, because it was clear that the court process had been hijacked by the state using security operatives who were all over the place to suppress the voice of our people who elected me. We are not going to give up,” she noted when contacted after the recount.
Email Us on editorial@nnafrica.com
