Uganda Parliament: 2 MPs ejected over papers, voter bribery

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Sept 15, 2016



High Court in Masaka has Tuesday nullified the election of two Members of Parliament for lack of academic documents and voter bribery respectively.
Judge Lawrence Gidudu nullified the election of Amos Mandela as Buyamba County legislator.

Mandela was kicked out on account of lack of minimum academic qualifications following a petition by former Makerere University guild president, Ivan Buwowe.

Bwowe petitioned the Electoral Commission on January 4th 2016 challenging Mandela’s candidature saying his academic papers had a lot of irregularities which the district registrar did not consider during the nomination exercise.

In his petition, Bwowe said that Amos Mandela’s nomination candidature was premised on fake documents to sneak into the fourth coming general elections.

He said that Mandela presented his Primary Leaving Examination-PLE results slip having Majara Amos yet his Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education-UACE and others had Mandela Amos.

However, in the letter dated 23rd January 2016, signed by EC Chairperson Eng. Badru Kiggundu, the commission upheld the Rakai Returning Officer’s decision to approve Mandela’s candidature.

But in his ruling, Gidudu found enough evidence to prove that Mandela’s papers were forged thus kicking him out of the house.

Rakai MP thrown out

On the same day, court kicked Rakai District Woman MP Juliet Suubi Kinyamatama out of parliament on grounds of voter bribery and ballot staffing.

Kinyamatama, who belongs to the ruling NRM party, was dragged to court by Democratic Party’s Robina Ssentongo Nakasirye.
Nakasirye demanded that court cancels Suubi’s victory accusing the returning officer of allowing declaration forms that had been rejected by the computer.

The Rakai District Registrar, Daniel Baguma, declared Kinyamatama the winner of the Rakai Woman Member of Parliamentary seat amid disagreements by agents on the actual results.

Police was forced to intervene to prevent chaos after residents raided the EC offices at the district headquarters.

Court on Tuesday found evidence-implicating Kinyamatama in ballot stuffing and voter bribery.

Court has thus declared the seat vacant and ordered for a by-election.
 
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