Fred Nyanzi runs to court again to secure his lost victory.

By; Rachael Najjuma

10^th March 2021

Fred Nyanzi Ssentamu, the former National Unity Platform Candidate in the Kampala Central Parliamentary race has petitioned High Court seeking to overturn the victory of his rival and incumbent legislator, Muhammad Nsereko.

The Electoral Commission, Kampala Central Returning Officer and Nsereko are first, second and third respondents to the suit respectively.

Through his lawyers of Semuyaba, Iga and Company Advocates, Nyanzi states that the January 14, 2021 Kampala Central Parliamentary elections, which attracted five candidates were not conducted in accordance with the electoral laws. He says the elections were not free and fair, which affected the final results in a substantial manner.

According to the poll result, Muhammad Nsereko, who was declared winner, polled 10,749 votes, Nyanzi came second with 15,975, the National Resistance Movement candidate Cedric Babu Ndilima garnered 10,749 votes, the Forum for Democratic Change-FDC candidate, Harold Scandrone Kaija got 1,679 votes while Ronald Edward Mukasa Ssenkubuge from the Alliance for National Transformation polled 1,653 votes.

According to Nyanzi, the polls were marred by several irregularities such as failure to count votes in accordance with Electoral laws, understating his votes, failure by the presiding officers to submit results from seven polling stations, inconsistencies in counting and tallying of votes on the declaration of result forms among other concerns.

Nyanzi, who lost with a margin of 1,023 votes, says that there was a need to scrutinise the ballots to determine whether some of his votes were wrongly invalidated.  To prove this, Nyanzi attaches evidence of 50 declaration result forms whose results were purportedly falsified.

He wants the High Court to stop Nsereko from swearing in and declare him the legitimate winner of the polls. In the alternative, Nyanzi wants the High Court to order a vote recount or elections under the supervision of another Returning Officer. He also wants the court to reprimand the Returning Officer of Kampala Central and the Presiding Officers of various polling stations for committing various electoral offences.

The petition is accompanied by a voluminous record of evidence from Nyanzi’s 13 polling agents.   This isn’t the first time Nyanzi is trying to overturn Nsereko’s victory. On January 22 2021, Nyanzi asked the Mengo Chief Magistrates Court to order for a vote recount.

However, the Mengo Court Chief Magistrate, Esther Nansambu dismissed his application on grounds that Nyanzi was raising matters of electoral offences, which would only be determined by the High court, which has jurisdiction to entertain such. The Civil Division High Court, Registrar Jameson Karemani is yet to summon Nsereko to file his defense before the petition is heard.