By Spy Uganda
Kabale: It’s a bad evening for FDC’s Fred Turyamuhweza Tumuheirwe who has lost the chance to be in parliament for Rujumbura County people after Kabale High Court trashed his petition challenging security Minister, Maj Gen Jim Muhwezi’s victory.
According to court documents, Turyamuhweza had petitioned accusing Muhwezi of voter bribery, ballot stuffing and intimidation of voters thus requesting court to overturn his victory. However, this has been trashed on grounds that there was no sufficient evidence.
The ruling was made by Justice Phillip Odoki who further noted that arguments by Tumuheirwe didn’t pass both quantitative and qualitative tests that would warrant the overturning of the election.
He reasoned; ”Applying the quantitative test, the voter margin between the petitioner and the first respondent was 5,243 votes, the petitioner did not adduce any evidence to show that this numerical margin would have been different or he would have won the election if there was compliance.”
He added, ”The question that begs to be answered is, based on the evidence presented before the court, can it be said that the election which was held on January 14, 2021, in Rujumbura County constituency, was qualitatively devoid of merit and can be rightly described as a spurious imitation of what an election should be or was conducted so badly that it amounts to a sham election? In my view, considering that the petitioner did not produce evidence that can lead to the conclusion that the election was a sham, the answer is a clear no.”
Not only the above but the judge also noted that there is no evidence to prove that the election of Jim Muhwezi as the Rujumbura County Member of Parliament was done in contravention of the provisions of the Parliamentary Elections Act as petitioner alleged.
Due to the above reasons, Odoki noted, ”The election of the first respondent therefore reflects the choice and will of the majority voters of Rujumbura County Constituency, Rukungiri District. and since the petitioner has failed to prove to the satisfaction of the court all the grounds of the petition, the petition is accordingly dismissed with costs.”
