Ssempijja loses Kalungu East election petition on filing deadline

MASAKA — Former Defence Minister Vincent Bamulangaki Ssempijja’s challenge to the election of Yusuf Kiruluuta Nkeretanyi as Kalungu East MP has been dismissed by the High Court in Masaka.
Justice Joyce Kavuma ruled that Ssempijja filed the election petition after the expiry of the statutory deadline.

The ruling was read by Masaka Deputy Registrar Roy Karungi.
Nkeretanyi’s lawyers had asked the court to throw out the case at the preliminary stage, arguing that Ssempijja had missed the 30-day period within which a parliamentary election can be challenged after the results are gazetted.
Ssempijja’s lawyers had sought permission to validate the petition and have the court hear the case on its merits.

But Justice Kavuma held that the court had no power to extend the statutory time limit.
The petition was therefore dismissed, with each side ordered to meet its own costs.
The ruling means the court did not examine Ssempijja’s allegations of electoral irregularities.
Nkeretanyi, who stood on the National Unity Platform ticket, was declared the winner of the January parliamentary election with 15,473 votes. Ssempijja, the National Resistance Movement candidate, was announced with 13,219 votes.
Ssempijja had first challenged the result before the Masaka Chief Magistrate’s Court, seeking a recount.
He alleged that results from some polling stations had been wrongly tallied and pointed to discrepancies in Declaration of Results forms. The Chief Magistrate initially ordered a recount.

The dispute later moved to the High Court after Ssempijja filed a substantive election petition.
The case was among 21 election petitions arising from the January 2026 elections that were assigned to five judges in the Masaka High Court circuit. Justice Kavuma was among the judges deployed to handle the cases.
With the petition dismissed on the preliminary issue, Ssempijja’s allegations against the conduct of the Kalungu East election remain untested by the High Court.