Justice Bernard Namanya found that compromised ballot boxes and failures to safeguard electoral materials breached the law but dismissed Nalubowa Rose’s petition for failing to prove that the irregularities substantially affected the election outcome.
The High Court in Masaka has upheld Justine Nameere’s election as Masaka City Woman Member of Parliament despite finding that a court-ordered recount that overturned her rival’s initial victory breached electoral law.
In a judgement delivered on October 21, 2026, Justice Bernard Namanya dismissed an election petition filed by Rose Nalubowa, ruling that although the recount involved compromised electoral materials and legal non-compliance, the petitioner failed to prove that the irregularities substantially affected the outcome.
The judge also ordered Nalubowa to pay the costs of the petition.
The dispute arose from the January 15, 2026 parliamentary election, in which Nalubowa was initially declared winner with 25,443 votes against Nameere’s 20,324.
Nameere subsequently sought a recount, arguing that the Electoral Commission had omitted results from some polling stations in the final declaration.
The recount, conducted under the direction of Masaka Chief Magistrate Asiimwe Abert, reversed the result, giving Nameere 25,502 votes against Nalubowa’s 23,176, a margin of 2,326 votes.
Nalubowa challenged the recount, arguing that it relied on compromised ballot boxes and excluded polling-station results, undermining the election outcome.
Justice Namanya found that nine polling stations were excluded after ballot boxes or related electoral materials were found to have been compromised.
The problems included broken or open ballot boxes, missing ballot papers and discrepancies between ballot-booklet accountability records and votes available for counting.
At Kimwanyi P7 School, the recount record indicated that ballot papers for the directly elected MP had been found alongside Woman MP materials.
At Sserinya Primary School, the box lacked cast ballots for the Woman MP election despite evidence that ballot booklets had been used. At Gayaza Nabbowa, more ballots had reportedly been used than could be accounted for.
The judge found that the Electoral Commission had failed in its statutory duty to safeguard election documents.
“Section 71 of the Parliamentary Elections Act imposes upon the Electoral Commission a statutory duty to ensure the safe custody of all election documents until their lawful destruction,” he said.
Justice Namanya also found that the Chief Magistrate acted contrary to the law by declaring Nameere the winner, noting that the statutory responsibility to declare and return the elected candidate rested with the Returning Officer upon receipt of the recount certificate.
Why the petition failed
Despite these findings, the court held that Nalubowa had not provided sufficient evidence to establish that the recount figures were erroneous or that the irregularities changed the election outcome.
The judge said she had not presented a polling-station-by-polling-station analysis demonstrating discrepancies between the original declaration and the recount figures.
The court also examined the nine excluded polling stations, which had 3,886 registered voters. The actual votes cast and excluded from the recount amounted to 1,353.
Justice Namanya reasoned that even if all 1,353 votes were added to Nalubowa’s tally, she would have obtained 24,529 votes, still 973 behind Nameere’s 25,502.
“Accordingly, notwithstanding that the recount was conducted in non-compliance with the electoral law, the petitioner has not established that the non-compliance affected the election result in a substantial manner,” he said.
Nalubowa had also challenged the timing of the recount and the Chief Magistrate’s supervision of the exercise. The court rejected both arguments, finding that the recount had been appointed within the statutory four-day period and that the petitioner had not proved it proceeded without judicial direction or supervision.