NRM Tribunal Nullifies Victory of Amama Mbabazi’s Wife, Orders Fresh Elections

The National Resistance Movement (NRM) Election Disputes Tribunal has nullified the election of Jacqueline Mbabazi as the party’s flag bearer for Member of Parliament representing Older Persons in the Western Region. 

Jacqueline, the wife of the Former Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi, lost her initial victory following a decision in which the Tribunal found that there were irregularities in votes that didn’t belong to her and were added onto her tally erroneously. 

This is a decision by Tribunal Chairperson John Musiime, alongside members Nelson Kamuhanda and Esau Isingoma. 

The Tribunal, in its Thursday decision, ordered the NRM Electoral Commission to organise a fresh election within 14 days, after serious irregularities were found in the previous poll.

The decision arises from a second petition filed by Patrick Kyamukate Mutabwire, who had earlier challenged the election results but lost.  Mutabwire chose to seek revision before the Same Tribunal.

In the first ruling, delivered on  September 5th 2025, the Tribunal admitted there had been some irregularities, including an error that wrongly added 46 votes to Mbabazi’s total. 

However, the Tribunal has decided that at the time these errors did not change the outcome, as Mbabazi still led by seven votes.

Mutabwire then returned to the Tribunal, asking for a review of that ruling. He presented new and important evidence, which he said was not available at the time of the original hearing. 

This evidence included a certified copy of the voters’ register for the electoral college, issued by the NRM Electoral Commission after the ruling. He also submitted additional affidavits and video footage to support his claims.

According to the new evidence, the certified register showed that 28 people appeared more than once, five people were illegally replaced, and three deceased individuals were listed as having voted.

The evidence by Mutabwire also showed that while there were only 364 eligible voters, a total of 430 votes were recorded, which was an excess of 66 votes.

Mutabwire argued that these irregularities were so serious that the previous ruling could no longer stand.

The Tribunal, chaired by Counsel John Musiime, accepted this new evidence and found that it had not been available earlier despite the applicant’s efforts.

According to the Tribunal, the respondents, Jacqueline Mbabazi and Dr Tanga Odoi, who is the Electoral Commission chairperson, did not respond to the application or submit any documents to challenge the claims.

After reviewing the case, the Tribunal was left with no choice but to rule that the election of Mbabazi had been severely compromised. 

It said the irregularities were both qualitative, affecting the integrity of the voter register, and quantitative, with the number of votes cast exceeding the legal maximum. The Tribunal explained that once there is over-voting of this scale, it becomes impossible to know the true will of the voters.

Mutabwire asked the Tribunal to declare him the winner based on his calculations, which placed him ahead by 29 votes if the illegal votes were removed.

However, the Tribunal declined to declare a winner. It said that while there was clear evidence of ineligible voting, it could not confidently say how every single excess vote was cast or allocated. 

“Declaring a new winner without full certainty would be speculation, which the law does not allow”, reads the decision. 

Instead, the Tribunal has now chosen to nullify the election entirely and ordered the NRM Electoral Commission to conduct a new one, following the Constitution and all relevant party regulations.

This is the second election arising from the August 2025 Central Executive Committee Elections that is being nullified. 

CEC is the apex decision-making body of the ruling Party, the NRM. 

A few weeks ago, the same Tribunal nullified the victory of Dr Tanga Odoi’s son Collins Tanga, as the NRM Youth League Chairperson, following his rival Brenda Kiconco’s petition and two others. 

The Tribunal found a conflict of interest since Dr Tanga had presided over the election and declared his son as the winner. 

Elections have since been repeated, and Collins Tanga emerged the Victor again in round two.