The ruling party NRM is set to go to court to challenge the outcome of the Bukoto South Parliamentary by-election.
Mathias Nsubuga, the Democratic Party candidate, was declared winner of the Thursday election after beating former minister Alintuma Nsambu and two others.
According to the official results declared by Gracious Aryaija, the Lwengo district returning officer, Nsubuga polled 11,854 votes against Nsambu’s 10,427 votes. Independent candidate Dan Katula Mubiru got four votes while Julius Ssentamu of the Forum for Democratic Change—FDC managed only fifty nine votes.
Speaking to the media at the NRM party headquarters in Kampala on Friday, the NRM electoral commission Chairman, Professor Elijah Mushemeza, said the elections were marred by violence, smear campaign and several malpractices which he says the party will capitalize upon to challenge the outcome in court.
The NRM candidate in the election, Alintuma Nsambu, lost the vote by close to 1,400 votes which Mushemeza believes were manipulated by the various intimidation tactics the opposition used.
He cited the use of CBS radio by the DP campaign team to allegedly defame the NRM candidate. Other tactics included the creation of what he described as “a terror atmosphere” by the opposition through the use of election agents.
The election-related violence in Bukoto South left at least 50 people arrested.
Alintuma Nsambu, a former ICT minister implicated in the botched national Identity Cards deal, was portrayed by his rivals in the race as disrespectful to the Kabaka of Buganda.
The loss of the Bukoto South constituency by the NRM becomes the sixth loss in a by-election out of the seven that have been held since the February 2011 elections. The loss is all the more significant as the party’s chairman President Yoweri Museveni actively campaigned for Nsambu in the region.
