Kampala City real estate dealer and lawyer Ismael Ssemakula’s hope of joining Parliament to represent Kalungu West Constituency has faded after the planned recount of votes cast in the constituency was aborted.
This came after Masaka Chief Magistrates Court discovered that six of the 102 ballot boxes were tampered with.
Ssemakula, who stood as an independent, lost to National Unity Platform (NUP)’s Joseph Gonzaga Ssewungu in the January 15 parliamentary polls, but complained that the vote counting and tallying was marred by irregularities which denied him victory.
On Friday morning, Masaka Chief Magistrate Albert Asiimwe and several other judicial officers and the parties in the case convened at Kalungu Electoral Commission offices to conduct a vote recount as it had been ordered by the court.
However, in the process of sorting out ballot boxes before conducting the recount, it was discovered that six box-seals had been broken, some had no seal, and others were not labeled, which prompted the magistrate to halt the process.
Neither security nor the EC officials who were in charge of ensuring that the ballot boxes are safe could explain how the seals got broken.
Ssewungu’s lawyers led by Alexander Lule, had already asked the court to halt the exercise, insisting it was already evident that the planned exercise was futile.
Ssemakula’s lawyer Ambrose Tebyasa, told the court that since the largest number of the ballot boxes had not been tampered with and they still had seals intact, the court could proceed with the recount.
“The dispute is not on the boxes, the application basically targets what is in the boxes and there is no visible evidence that what is inside could have been tempered with, we think court can proceed with the recount so that the voters in Kalungu West can get to the rightful person who can lead the constituency for the next five years,” he added.
Counsel Lule, however, insisted that they could not proceed with the vote recount exercise after discovering that even a single ballot box had been tampered with, but in this case, over four boxes had broken seals.
“The court was very clear before we started this exercise that if we get any ballot box with a broken seal, the process would be halted forthwith, but in this case, six ballot boxes already have issues – their seals were broken, so court cannot not allow a recount to be held in such a situation,” he explained.
He said that though the applicant still had integrity of ballot boxes in custody of EC because the seal that locked the store was intact, it causes suspicions that the act of breaking the box seals happened before.
The presiding magistrate then ruled: “Ballot boxes contain materials of candidates that are not party to this case, there is also an election petition where court is yet to issue a ruling, considering the purpose of a recount, finding ballot boxes open where court is not aware of the circumstances under which this happened, I find that a recount can’t go ahead, as its purpose is frustrated,” he said.
He instead advised the applicant to seek remedy in the High Court where a full electoral petition can be entertained.
Tebyasa said that they are going to wait for Ssewungu to get gazetted as a duly elected legislator and they will file a case in the High Court.
“We are going to start on a process of preparing an election petition as a way of ensuring that our client and his voters get justice,” he said.
Lule welcomed the ruling, saying they are happy that their client is now free to be gazetted as the duly elected area MP for the next five years. Ssewungu applauded his legal team for doing a good job to secure his victory.
Ssemakula, a newcomer in Kalungu politics, polled 10,060 votes while Ssewungu garnered 10,106 votes, indicating a margin of 46 votes. Ruling National Resistance Movement flag bearer Twaha Kiganda Ssonko came in the third position with 2,211 votes followed by Democratic Front (DF)’s Michael Birimuye Matovu who collected 555 votes while Democratic Party’s James Balikuddembe got 137 votes.