The National Resistance Movement (NRM) party Electoral Commission has overturned the victory of the former Minister of Education Jessica Alupo.
The ex-Minister had been declared the winner of the NRM flag for Katakwi district Woman Member Parliament
NRM EC Tribunal declared Violet Akurut as the duly elected flag bearer for Katakwi Woman MP Seat. The tribunal chaired by Enoch Barata ruled that Alupo should not have been declared the winner of the September 04 polls because of reported vote rigging and non-declaration of results from her rival’s stronghold.
Reports indicate that Alupo connived with NRM EC registrar Patrick Imeri, to withhold results from Okore Sub-County where Akurut had garnered over 10,000 votes. Alupo also allegedly altered the declaration forms where she claimed to have garnered 16,000 votes yet the entire sub county has less than 2000 NRM voters.
In their ruling, the tribunal confirmed that votes from Okore had been computed by the NRM registrar Imeri despite the fact that he had them. Initially, Imeri had declared Alupo as the winner with over 38,000 votes against Akurut’s 29,000.
“The tribunal finds that the petitioner (Akurut) polled 10,144 votes from Okore sub County and the respondent (Alupo) polled 34 votes and when the results are added to the results released by the District Registrar, the Tribunal finds that the petitioner polled a total of 39,579 votes against 38,616 votes polled by the respondent,” the judgment reads.
Akurut defeated Alupo in 2015 NRM Primaries and 2016 general polls. The latter ran to court, but was defeated in the Court of Appeal which upheld Akurut’s victory.
