MP Joel Ssenyonyi Protests Fresh Election Challenging His Victory

Posted by: Kyeyune Andrew Jonathan in Uganda politics August 4, 2021

The Nakawa West MP and spokesperson of the National Unity Platform (NUP) Joel Ssenyonyi has protested a fresh election. Shuklah Mukesh Nahubhai filed the amended petition.

Ssenyonyi’s lawyers from Pace Advocates argued that they received the May 10, 2021 petition on Monday evening.

They said that this petition introduced fresh allegations and insist that it has even come in court out of time.

Mukesh first petitioned to court on March 19, 2021, challenging Ssenyonyi’s victory. The challenge mainly focused on allegations of electoral irregularities such as under-declaring his votes.

In addition to that, voters were allegedly fetched from other areas to come and participate in the voting, ballot stuffing, among other accusations.

‘’The first respondent/Electoral Commission occasioned irregularities when they presented the declaration of result forms that were not signed or witnessed by the presiding officer and based on the same to declare 2nd respondent/Ssenyonyi a validly elected member of parliament,’’ the original petition reads in part.

Mukesh filed the petition on the last day of the 30-day deadline for filing election petitions.

However, two months after that, Mukesh filed an amended petition on May 10 and has only decided to serve Ssenyonyi’s lawyer a copy on Monday evening.

In this new petition, Mukesh raised fresh allegations questioning Ssenyonyi’s academic qualifications for election as an MP.

Joel Ssenyonyi ran under the NUP umbrella and defeated 11 other rivals after he obtained 31,653 votes.

Despite his seventh position placement in the election results, Mukesh felt like, on top of the voting irregularities, there were some other issues.

He informed the EC that at the time of the election, Ssenyonyi had no qualifications. This alone could not enable him run as an MP.

Through his lawyers, Mukesh wants the court to declare that Ssenyonyi and the Electoral Commission went against both the law and good principles.

He said the two parties went against principles that are necessary in a thriving democracy. He also seeks court’s nullification of Ssenyonyi’s victory.

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