It has been 14 years now since Paul Mwiru started a rivalry with the National Resistance Movement (NRM)’s Nathan Igeme Nabeta over Jinja South Division East constituency, formally known as Jinja East.
During this duration, Nabeta and Mwiru have faced off five times, with the former sticking to the ruling party, while the latter has moved from the Forum to the Democratic (FDC) to the Alliance for National Transformation (ANT) and now the National Unity Platform (NUP).
In the five times they have faced off, Mwiru has never won at the first time of asking. He twice won a by-election, though. Specifically, when Mwiru first contested in 2011, on the FDC ticket, Nabeta won the election with 8,203 votes (49.5 percent) whilst Mwiru came second with 7,060 votes (42 percent).
Mwiru challenged Nabeta’s victory in the High Court, saying the NRM flag-bearer had no requisite academic papers and that he had bribed voters. Both the High Court and Court of Appeal agreed that Nabeta’s academic papers hadn’t been evaluated by the National Council for Higher Education in consultation with the Uganda National Examination Board (Uneb).
‘The evidence on record proves that there was no consultation between Uneb and the third respondent on the totality of the first respondent’s academic qualification before the issuance of the certificate dated 4th August 2010. The only inquiry that the third respondent made about the first respondent’s academic papers concerned the authenticity of his O-Level certificate. Uneb replied to that query. It stated that the O-Level certificate was genuine. This inquiry, in my view, did not satisfy the requirements of the law. There was no other evidence showing the participation of Uneb in the equating exercise,’ Justice Constance Byamugisha, who has since passed on, ruled in her lead judgement.
The Court of Appeal also agreed with Mwiru that Nabeta had bribed voters when he gave out welding and spraying machines to mechanics in Jinja City.
‘I, therefore, find that the evidence of Mutebi Muhammed, Magezi, Kalema, Lwala and Bamuranki proved to the satisfaction of the court that the first respondent [Nabeta] is the one who personally distributed the said machines, thus committing an illegal act of bribing voters. This act alone is sufficient to nullify the 1st respondent’s [Nabeta] election as a Member of Parliament,’ Justice Byamugisha said.
In the resultant by-election, held in early 2012, Mwiru, who was still on the FDC ticket, beat Nabeta with a difference of 2,000 votes.
By-election 2.0
Again in 2016, the battle for Jinja East was a two-way battle between then incumbent Mwiru and Nabeta the challenger. Nabeta once again beat Mwiru at the first time of asking, albeit by just 135 votes. Mwiru sought redress in the High Court, saying the Electoral Commission (EC) had doctored the results.
In his petition, Mwiru accused Nabeta of conspiring with EC officials to inflate votes at Danida A-D polling station. In particular, Mwiru said whilst the correct vote obtained at this polling station indicated that Nabeta had got 187 votes against his 226 votes, the forged declaration forms, which the EC relied on, showed that Nabeta had got 502 votes against his 226 votes.
Justice Lydia Mugambe agreed with Mwiru that Nabeta’s victory was a work of fraud, and ordered that there shouldn’t be a by-election since the results clearly indicate that Mwiru had won.
‘The evidence produced in court proved that the first [ Nabeta] and second [EC] respondents collaborated to deny the complainant the win. The Court declares Paul Mwiru the winner,’ Justice Mugambe ruled.
Nabeta appealed, but he only succeeded in terms of the Court of Appeal ordering another by-election. Mwiru wouldn’t be denied, again, as he won another by-election. This time with 6,654 votes against Nabeta’s 5,043 votes.
Mwiru’s victory, however, came at a time when his FDC was beginning to disintegrate, with one faction headed by Dr Kizza Besigye and another by Gregory Mugisha Muntu.
Mwiru backed Muntu’s faction and once Patrick Oboi Amuriat won the FDC presidency in 2018 by defeating Muntu at Mandela National Stadium, he was among those who formed ANT.
In the 2021 General Election, Mwiru would, for the first time, swap the FDC ticket for the ANT ticket. He, however, came second in the parliamentary poll with 5,580 votes. Nabeta emerged victorious with 5,817 votes.
The slim difference of just 237 votes prompted Mwiru to once again seek redress in court, contending that Nabeta connived with the EC to inflate and manipulate results in several polling stations.
Mwiru singled out polling stations like Masese Polling Station, N-M, where he indicated that Nabeta purportedly garnered 650 votes from the 678 people who turned up to vote on polling day.
Third time lucky
Mwiru’s lawyers, led by constitutional law giant Peter Walubiri, argued that the quoted number of people couldn’t have turned up between midday and 5pm when the voting ended.
At the High Court level, Justice Isaac Sserunkuuma dismissed Mwiru’s case on the grounds that he lacked sufficient evidence to support the allegations. Mwiru wasn’t done, though.
He took the battle to the Court of Appeal, saying Justice Sserukuuma failed to evaluate the evidence brought before him properly and ended up making a wrong conclusion about the matter.
The Court of Appeal panel that included Justice Christopher Madrama, Hellen Obura and Elizabeth Musoke didn’t go into the merits of Mwiru’s case because they dismissed the appeal on the account that he filed the record of appeal out of time and did not serve the notice of appeal within the required timeframe of seven days.
The record of appeal is supposed to be filed within 30 days after the memorandum, a document which shows the grounds of appeal have been filed.
Much to Mwiru’s amusement, the trio ruled that after filing the document late, Mwiru did not make use of the rules enshrined in the Court of Appeal, which provide for filing applications for validation of documents filed out of time.
With ANT not gaining traction, Mwiru would soon join the NUP bandwagon. ‘I’ve not defected but rather joined the National Unity Platform for several reasons; however, the objective remains the same,’ he explained his defection.
‘My decision followed a series of engagements with people from my constituency and involvement of different stakeholders, who later found it right for me to cross to the mainstream Opposition party, and as the situation stands at present, I have to play the NUP politics.’
Mwiru was among those candidates who recently got the NUP ticket after going through a process that many have castigated as fraudulent. This means he will once again face-off with Nabeta. Despite being defeated in the NRM primary by Richard Mbaziira, Nabeta has insisted on standing as an Independent.
‘The primaries have lost relevance because now candidates just ship in voters from other areas. I’m confident that I will win because I still have a lot of support as an individual in this area,’ Nabeta explained.