The High court in Kampala has dismissed an election petition filed by jailed National Unity Platform (NUP) candidate Waiswa Alex Mufumbiro challenging the election of National Resistance Movement (NRM) candidate Fredrick Ruhindi as member of parliament for Nakawa Division East.
Mufumbiro accused the Electoral Commission of declaring the winner based on incomplete results, citing discrepancies in declaration of results forms, alleged ballot stuffing and unusually high voter turnout at some polling stations.
He further alleged that the electoral officials inflated votes in Ruhindi’s favour, excluded results from 22 polling stations and failed to properly account for votes cast at several polling stations.
But in a judgment delivered today, justice Allan Paul Nshimye found that most of the allegations were not supported by sufficient evidence. Court ruled that although the Electoral Commission failed to include results from 22 polling stations in the final tally, the omission did not substantially affect the outcome of the election.
The court established that Ruhindi had won the January 15, 2026 parliamentary election with 18,575 votes against Mufumbiro’s 15,067, giving him a margin of 3,508 votes.
On the alleged inflation of results, the judge observed that Mufumbiro relied on photocopies of declaration of results forms that had not been certified by the Electoral Commission, making them inadmissible as authentic public documents. The judge further faulted the petitioner for failing to present several polling agents who had signed the disputed declaration forms to explain the alleged irregularities.
Of the 12 agents whose signatures appeared on the declaration forms cited in the allegations of inflated results, only two were presented as witnesses.
Justice Nshimye also rejected claims of unusually high voter turnout at some polling stations, noting that one of Mufumbiro’s witnesses, Kato Wilson Kenneth, admitted during cross-examination that some of the percentages he had presented were inaccurate.
The court also found that discrepancies relating to the number of male and female voters, as well as ballot papers issued, used and unused, were not sufficient to invalidate the election without additional evidence demonstrating how they affected the results.
However, the judge agreed with Mufumbiro on one significant irregularity, establishing that results from 22 polling stations had indeed been excluded from the final tally sheet. The Electoral Commission’s returning officer for Kampala Capital City, Rashid Hasakya, confirmed during cross-examination that the results from the 22 polling stations had not been included.
Justice Nshimye ruled that the omission amounted to non-compliance with the Parliamentary Elections Act, which requires electoral officials to properly tally and record votes from polling stations.
To establish whether the irregularity had affected the election outcome, the judge examined the declaration forms from the excluded polling stations and calculated the votes obtained by the two leading candidates.
The court established that Mufumbiro had received 1,072 votes from the 22 polling stations, while Ruhindi obtained 599, giving Mufumbiro an advantage of 473 votes. But after deducting the 473 votes from Ruhindi’s original winning margin of 3,508, the judge found that Ruhindi would still have won by 3,035 votes had the excluded results been included in the final tally.
The judge further noted that even using the figures presented by Mufumbiro himself, which indicated that he had obtained 1,335 votes against Ruhindi’s 735 from the affected polling stations, Ruhindi would still have maintained a winning margin of 2,908 votes.
On allegations of electoral offences, including ballot stuffing, making false declarations and undue influence, Justice Nshimye found that Mufumbiro had not presented witnesses who could directly link Ruhindi to the alleged offences.
The judge observed that much of the evidence relied upon by the petitioner was based on information allegedly received from other people who had been at the polling stations, rather than personal observations.
He therefore found no sufficient evidence to establish that Ruhindi had personally committed any electoral offence or done so with his knowledge and approval. In his final orders, justice Nshimye dismissed the Election Petition, upheld Ruhindi as the duly elected Member of Parliament for Nakawa Division East and directed each party to meet its own legal costs.