Candidates for Ajuri County Parliamentary Seat Will Not Campaign in Repeat Polls

The five candidates who contested for the Ajuri County parliamentary seat will not be campaigning ahead of the repeat election scheduled by the Electoral Commission.

Results for Ajuri County in Alebtong District have not been declared due to discrepancies in results from one polling station in Abako Sub-county and 17 polling stations in Awei Sub-county.

For instance One of the candidates cited anomalies at two polling stations. At Te-Ongora polling station in Awei Sub-county, the incumbent Government Chief Whip, Denis Hamson Obua, reportedly received 67 votes, but a prefix “4” was added, changing the figure to 467 votes, despite the total number of voters who turned up to vote being only 231.

As a result, the Electoral Commission has scheduled a repeat election on the 27th of this month in the affected sub-counties.  Jessica Adongo Ocen, the Alebtong District Returning Officer, said tallying of results for Ajuri County has not yet been concluded.

She also dismissed what she described as misleading media reports that the incumbent Member of Parliament for Ajuri County, Denis Hamson Obua, had lost the race.

The candidates contesting for the Ajuri County parliamentary seat include the incumbent and Government Chief Whip, Denis Hamson Obua, Fred Jalameso of the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC), Emmanuel Ongom Okwel of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), and independent candidates Stephen Omara and Tom Jasper Molo. Although five candidates are in the race, the contest remains particularly tight between Obua and Jalameso.

From the January 15 polls, the Electoral Commission received results from 160 out of the 178 polling stations in Ajuri County. According to those provisional results, Jalameso garnered 14,331 votes, representing 44.5 percent, while Obua obtained 12,963 votes, representing 40.25 percent.

Fred Jalameso has since protested the Electoral Commission’s decision to conduct a repeat election, demanding instead to be declared the duly elected Member of Parliament for Ajuri County.

“Circumstances that require a re-run did not prevail on the voting day, and therefore, a re-run is completely no,” Jalameso argued. He added that as the candidate with the highest number of votes, he should be declared the winner without delay.

Jalameso, who believes his victory is being deliberately denied, demanded equal opportunity and fair treatment by the Electoral Commission.