Court dismisses Lydia Wanyoto’s Petition against Connie Galiwango

MBALE, UGANDA: Mbale High Court has dismissed with costs Lydia Wanyoto’s election petition challenging the victory of Connie Nakayenze Galiwango as duly elected Mbale City Woman Member of Parliament (MP).

In February, Lydia Wanyoto Mutende, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) candidate petitioned the court challenging the election of Connie Galiwango. According to Wanyoto, the election was marred with violence, voter bribery, and intimidation of voters.

According to Electoral Commission results, Connie Galiwango who ran as an independent candidate in the January 14 polls after losing to Wanyoto in the NRM primaries won the Mbale City Woman MP with 40729 votes while NRM’s Wanyoto Lydia Mutende trailed in the second position with 25276 votes.

In his ruling on Thursday, 30 September 2021, Justice Dr. Andrew Bashaija ruled that Wanyoto failed to prove her petition with substantive evidence to challenge Galiwango’s victory.

“Galiwango resoundingly won the election with 40,729 votes against the 25,276 votes. That is a wild margin given that there were four other candidates in the race. The success of such a winning candidate at the election cannot be interfered with or taken away without any justification. It should be upheld, having found that the petitioner is not entitled to any remedies. The petition is, therefore, dismissed in its entirety with costs to the first and second respondent,” he ruled.

Shortly after the ruling, a disgruntled Lydia Wanyoto and her lawyers said their next step is to appeal the ruling as they were not satisfied with Justice Bahaija’s ruling.

Remarkably, the former Speaker of Parliament and current East African affairs Minister Ms. Rebecca Kadaga was the first to congratulate Hon. Connie Galiwango upon retaining her seat as Mbale Woman MP.

“Congratulations to Hon. Connie Galiwango. The choice of Mbale City, on winning the election Petition. The People spoke clearly and unequivocally on the 14th January 2021,” Kadaga tweeted a few hours after news filtered in that Galiwango had won the case.

During the campaigns for speakership wherein Kadaga was seeking a third term, Wanyoto was one of the openly vocal National Resistance Movement party cadres who were opposed to her. Wanyoto openly campaigned for the current speaker, Jacob Oulanyah.