ANT’s Mwiru Loses Petition Against NRM’s Nabeta in Court of Appeal

The Court of Appeal has dismissed an election petition filed by Paul Mwiru challenging the victory of Nathan Igeme Nabeta for the Jinja South East Parliamentary seat.

Mwiru, the Alliance for National Transformation (ANT) Party Candidate for Jinja South East Parliamentary seat, arrived at the Court of Appeal on Monday morning accompanied by ANT Party President Mugisha Muntu.

Mwiru lost to the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) Candidate, Nabeta, in the January 14, 2021 polls after gathering 5,580 votes against Nabeta’s 5,817 votes.

He challenged the results in court citing vote-rigging, connivance with security operatives to frustrate ANT polling agents, and conspiracy with electoral commission officials to steal his victory even though the DR forms clearly show that he won the hotly contested election.

The Jinja High Court dismissed his election petition for failing to produce sufficient evidence to prove the allegations.

Mwiru then decided to petition the Court of Appeal.

On Monday morning, excitement and wild ululations broke out among NRM supporters after the Court of Appeal upheld Nabeta’s victory in a ruling read by deputy registrar, Susan Kanyanage.

A panel of three judges; Justices Christopher Madrama, Elizabeth Musoke, and Hellen Obura, dismissed the petition in which Mwiru had sought to overturn an earlier decision of the High Court.

Mwiru had applied to extend the time within which he could file and serve his memorandum of appeal to Nabeta.

The justices instead allowed Nabeta’s application to have Mwiru’s appeal struck out with costs citing failure to take essential steps of filing the grounds of appeal within the mandatory 30 days.