2021 ELECTION AFTERMATH: The National Unity Platform (NUP) president, Mr Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, alias Bobi Wine, has vowed to challenge President Museveni’s election in court and has said that he is compiling evidence to support his petition.
Mr Kyagulanyi told Daily Express on Saturday Evening that despite the Internet shutdown by government, his team was able to gather good evidence to present before court to challenge the election results the Electoral Commission declared at the weekend.
Presidential election petitions are filed in the Supreme Court and the court has up to 15 days file the petition and 65 days to dispose of the petition from the day results are announced.
Bobi Wine said besides the Supreme Court, they have other options where to seek justice which include foreign courts.
“We have said it before that we have all options on table including the legal option. We intend to go to local and international courts of law to challenge this election which was filled with irregularities,” he said yesterday.
“There are many reasons why we have rejected this election starting from the violence we went through during campaigns. We have declaration forms from various polling stations, ballot stuffing and arrest of agents, among other pinning evidence, which we shall use in courts of law,” he added.
Kyagulanyi however did not specify which international courts he would petition for justice or the kind of cases he would file there. Foreign courts of international jurisdiction don’t hear election petitions from a particular country. Courts such as International Criminal Court and other special criminal tribunals hear criminal cases on genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In 2016, presidential candidate Amama Mbabazi also filed a presidential petition challenging Mr Museveni’s victory but the court dismissed his petition for lack of sufficient evidence to prove election fraud.
Mr Museveni was declared winner of the January 14 presidential elections with 58.64 per cent against Mr Kyagulanyi’s 34.83 per cent. Mr Patrick Oboi Amuriat of Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) got 3.24 per cent, Maj Gen (rtd) Mugisha Muntu of Alliance for National Transformation (ANT) (0.65 per cent), Mr Nobert Mao of Democratic Party (0.56 per cent). Independents Henry Tumukunde got 0.5 per cent, Joseph Kabuleta (0.44 per cent), John Katumba (0.36 per cent) while Willy Mayambala and Fred Mwesigye got 0.25 per cent and 0.15 per cent, respectively.
Without giving specific statistics, Mr Kyagulanyi said he had won the election but said the EC does not have the figures from all polling stations.
“We are compiling our votes and we shall tell the that I beat Gen Museveni fair and square in this election. If the EC is independent enough as they claim to be, let them publish the election results per polling station in our local media,’’ he said.
“We call upon Ugandans to reject what Mr Byabakama announced as the results. We all saw that people turned up in large numbers than ever before but it is surprising that the EC boss said that only half of the registered voters turned up at polling stations. Unfortunately, I am under incarceration at my home and no one can visit me and I can’t go out but once the internet is restored, we shall give the world all these things,” he added.
Figures from the EC indicate that the Thursday poll had a voter turnout of 57.22 per cent, which is less than 62.61 per cent in 2016 and 69.2 per cent in 2006.
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