The much anticipated petition by the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party challenging the election of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC)’s Paul Mwiru as Jinja East legislator has become practical.
NRM lawyers today presented the petition to the High Court in Jinja, praying that Mwiru’s victory is nullified.
Mwiru was declared winner of the hotly contested race against NRM’s Nathan Igeme Nabeeta.
According to the results announced by the Electoral Commission, Mwiru got 6,654 while his closes challenger; Nabeta got 5,043. The two were followed by an independent candidate – Faisal Masaba who managed 117 votes.
The rest of the candidates trailed scoring below one hundred votes each. This was the fourth time the two were facing off. And if NRM, which has decided to challenge the result in court wins, there might be a fifth face-off ahead.
Although voting was delayed by the downpour that started around 6am and went on throughout the afternoon, voters turned up in good numbers at the various polling stations.
Rigged
But a day after the elections, NRM Secretary General, Justine Kasule Lumumba called a press conference and rejected the results.
At the press conference Lumumba who was flanked by the party spokesman, Rogers Mulindwa, Jinja West MP, Moses Grace Balyeku and Igeme himself.
Lumumba said that the election was riddled with electoral malpractices including, multiple voting by known members of the opposition, voter bribery, intimidation, violence against Nabeta’s supporters.

“We are in possession of evidence that the election was riddled with malpractices and we have submitted this evidenced so far collected to our legal team to assess and advise us on our next move,” said Ms Lumumba.

Lumumba added that if the legal team finds it suitable, they will challenge the results in the courts of law.
“Known NRM supporters were warned of dire consequences should NRM emerge victorious; goons were stationed at residences of many NRM supporters to scare them away from polling stations,” she said

NRM further charged that the chairman of its election taskforce had been roughed up and windscreens of their buses smashed by opposition supporters. During a briefing on cabinet decisions at the Uganda Media Centre on Tuesday March 20, 2018, information minister Frank Tumwebaze said Lumumba had briefed ministers on the legal action the party intends to take.

Arrests
Since Monday April 9, 2018, police in Jinja in collaboration with other security operatives have been carrying out arrests in Jinja Municipality East.
Among those who were only released on police bond after five days of detention is at various police stations are Jinja Municipal council Speaker Morrison Bizitu, former Walukuba Masese Division LC III chairman, Muhammed Musisi Kibugudhu Badman, Jinja Central Division councilor representing PWDs, Joseph Kintu and another FDC supporter, Peter Nagano. These were arrested together with 10 Electoral Commission officials who presided over the recently conducted Jinja East by election.

It is alleged that the ‘Mwiru supporters’ who served as polling officials illegally added ghost voters in the registration Database.

Section 29 of the Election Commission Act states that any person who by himself or herself or any other person procures the registration of himself or herself or any other person on a voters roll for a constituency, knowing that he or she or that other person is not entitled to be registered on that voters roll or is already registered on it or on another voters roll or by himself or herself or any other person procures the registration of a fictitious person, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding thirty currency points or to imprisonment not exceeding one year or to both.

Evidence
Butalejja Resident District Commissioner, Richard Gulume Balyaino told this writer on Saturday last week that “our camp has been receiving evidence to confirm that Mwiru rigged.” Gulume, a resident of Jinja and who was in the Igeme campaign team said the party had obtained video footage, audios, still photos and confessions from some of the FDC stalwarts who executed the rigging, voter bribery, intimidation of voters and threatened violence.

In fact several election observers claimed that the election was marred by violence, intimidation, voter bribery and other electoral malpractices coupled with heavy.
The Igeme camp also accused the heavily deployed police of connivance with Mwiru to only look on as he broke the electoral laws.

In the aftermath, the Kiira Regional Police Commander, Gerald Twishime and the Jinja Central Divisional Police Commander, Martin Mbabazi were suspended and put under investigations.
Ready
But on knowledge that the ruling party has gone to court, the FDC camps says it is not at all scared. FDC vice president eastern region, Salaam Musumba said last evening: There we go again!
“They (NRM) learnt nothing and forgot nothing. If they had a good case like that, why did they first arrest innocent people? Ok we go to court,” one FDC supporter said.

Jinja Central Division LC III chairman, Kirunda Mubarak said NRM was simply again wasting their resources. In fact he described the petition as a fake dollar saying that they (FDC) had the trust and the will of the citizens of Jinja East.
Notwithstanding the FDC’s take, a journalist who covered the election and spoke on condition of anonymity said the NRM claims hold water. The journalist said he had witnessed incidents at Main Street primary school polling station, where opposition youths prevent those perceived to be NRM supporters from proceeding to vote.

“I have the footage my brother. And remember at one press conference Mwiru himself incited his supporter when he told them to kill anyone who would stand in their way,” says the reporter.
Should the NRM win the case in court, Mwiru and Igeme will go for the fifth contest.

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Ugandan lawyer sued Facebook Ireland over allegedly defamatory posts by an anonymous blogger
A Ugandan lawyer who has sued Facebook Ireland over allegedly defamatory posts by an anonymous blogger has lost his appeal seeking the identity and location of the blogger.

The Court of Appeal said lawyer Fred Muwema’s right to also bring defamation proceedings against a blogger who goes under the pseudonym TVO (Tom Voltaire Okwalinga) was outweighed by the risk to life or bodily integrity of TVO from the Ugandan authorities if his identity is disclosed.

Mr Muwema claims he was defamed in a number of posts by TVO.
He brought defamation proceedings and sought orders to have the posts taken down by Facebook Ireland because it provides the social media service to all users outside of the US and Canada.
The posts were removed but Mr Muwema also sought the identity of TVO so that he could join him in the defamation proceedings against Facebook, which denies his claims.

Facebook opposed revealing TVO’s identity without a court order. It argued there was evidence to show, if the identity was disclosed, TVO would be exposed to arrest and ill-treatment at the hands of the Ugandan authorities.
TVO has posted material critical of the Ugandan government which also wants to know his identity.

In the High Court last year, Mr Justice Donald Binchy refused to order identity disclosure saying the threat to TVO was sufficiently serious that Mr Muwema’s right to a good name had to take second place to TVO’s right to life and bodily integrity.
Facebook had provided evidence from award-winning Ugandan human rights lawyer, Nicholas Opiyo, who said a man called Shaka Robert, who he said was widely believed to be TVO, had been subjected to abuse of his rights by the Ugandan authorities over online activism.

Mr Opiyo represents Mr Robert and says his client has been held in a detention centre in Kierka, Kampala, notorious for torture, and held incommunicado in breach of his constitutional rights.
Despite getting a court order directing Mr Robert’s release, Mr Opiyo said the authorities had refused to comply and instead charged Mr Robert with “disguising himself as TVO between 2011 and 2015” and with posting statements on Facebook to “disturb the right of privacy” of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

Mr Robert was eventually released on bail but when he attempted to travel for a holiday, was again arrested at Entebbe Airport and accused of theft before being later released in the dead of night, Mr Opiyo said.
Anyone arrested on suspicion of being TVO is subjected to extreme abuse of their rights, often in violation of court orders, he said.
Mr Muwema, in his appeal, said the High Court had placed too much weight on the “hearsay affidavit evidence” of Mr Opiyo and of Facebook’s own lawyer in Ireland, Jack Gilbert, and an Amnesty International report.
It was argued the trial judge placed too little reliance on Mr Muwema’s affidavit which said, among other things, that Facebook’s claims about Uganda were unnecessarily alarmist.

Mr Muwema also said the justice system in Uganda is generally fully functional and serves justice to everyone, including government critics and “compares favourbly to other leading countries in Africa”.
Facebook opposed the appeal.

Giving the decision of the three-judge Court of Appeal, Mr Justice Michael Peart said he would not interfere with the High Court decision.
It was inevitable the risk established by the evidence should be considered to outweigh Mr Muwema’s right to bring proceedings against TVO, he said.

Mr Muwema, he noted, already has a defamation case against Facebook and, if successful, will be compensated. Facebook is defending the claim, including on the basis that it is not a publisher of the defamatory material, the judge also noted.

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