Mubende — Hajji Abdul Bisaso, the NRM Member of Parliament for Kassanda South, welcomed the High Court’s decision on Friday to suspend a planned vote recount in the election petition challenging his victory, after the parties failed to produce records of the seals on the ballot boxes.
Acting Judge Mary Babirye halted the sample recount of 29 polling stations that she had ordered on October 14. The exercise was meant to check whether the figures on the declaration-of-results forms matched the ballots from the January 15 election, in which Bisaso was declared the winner with 11,765 votes to independent candidate Eria Mubiru’s 11,050.
Ballot boxes were delivered to the court under heavy police escort. Once proceedings began, Bisaso’s lawyers objected to continuing without verified seal and serial-number documentation. They pointed out that candidates had not received the required records after the election and raised concerns about the chain of custody of materials held by the Electoral Commission for nine months. Mubiru’s legal team opposed any further delay of the ordered recount.
The judge directed the parties to produce the seal records and gave them a short time to do so. When the documents were not presented, she suspended the recount, citing the need to protect the integrity of the electoral materials under the Parliamentary Elections Act. The boxes were returned to the Electoral Commission’s storage facility in Kassanda, and both sides were ordered to file final submissions within five days.
Bisaso expressed satisfaction with the ruling, noting that the seals on the boxes that arrived differed from those the candidates had received earlier. He thanked God and affirmed his continued belief that the case would be decided in his favour. Lawyers for both sides acknowledged that the missing documentation raised questions about the handling of the ballot boxes, though they differed on whether the recount should have proceeded.
With the physical recount now halted, the petition will be determined on the evidence already presented. Bisaso remains the declared MP for Kassanda South as the court moves toward judgment.
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