High Court Upholds Nomination of Ssenyonyi and 6 others, Dismisses Bwowe Appeal

The High Court in Kampala has dismissed an election appeal that had been challenging the nomination of parliamentary candidates for Nakawa Division West Constituency, despite  clerical errors on their  nomination papers.

Justice Collins Acellam, has rejected an appeal filed by PPF’s  Bwowe Ivan, who had argued that his rival candidates were invalidly nominated by the Electoral Commission after indicating “Nakawa West” instead of the gazetted “Nakawa Division West” Constituency on their nomination documents.

The petition sought to kick out of the January 15^th race, the sitting MP for Nakawa West, Joel Ssenyonyi and six others hence declaring Bwowe unopposed.

Bwowe  contended that “Nakawa West” is a non-existent constituency and that the Electoral Commission lacked the authority to amend or cure defects in nomination papers after the nomination exercise had  been concluded.

He then sought orders declaring him the only validly nominated candidate and asked court to direct the Commission to declare him elected unopposed.

However, the court upheld the Commission’s earlier decision, which had found that the omission of the word “Division” was a clerical error that had been corrected during the nomination process through the control form signed by all candidates, including the Bwowe.

The judge has  held that the Electoral Commission acted within its statutory mandate under Section 15 of the Electoral Commission Act to correct irregularities in the electoral process. 

Justice Acellam has  also observed that all candidates, including Bwowe  had demonstrated a shared understanding of the electoral area, citing campaign programs and other documents indicating an intention to contest in the same geographical constituency.

The court further noted that Bwowe himself had been declared nominated under the same “Nakawa West” description in official declaration forms, an anomaly he did not challenge at the time.

In dismissing the appeal, the judge cautioned against using technical errors to by-pass the electoral process and to allow the appeal would have the effect of imposing  Bwowe on the voters of the Constituency  as their representative,   yet  “a proper mandate is through the ballot box”.

The court concluded that the petition had not succeeded and upheld the Electoral Commission’s decision to maintain the nomination.

The Nakawa West Division constituency has 8 competing candidates including the Leader of opposition and NUP candidate Joel Ssenyonyi, PFF’s Bwowe Ivan and NRM’s Anderson Burora among others .