Mbabali reinstates case against VP Ssekandi

By Raymond Baguma

DEMOCRATIC Party’s (DP) Jude Mbabali has decided to reinstate his petition challenging the election of Vice President Edward Kiwanuka Ssekandi for the Bukoto Central parliamentary seat.

This comes after four voters Margaret Nansubuga, Charles Samula, Robert Kasiita, and Barbara Kabejja, lodged an application before the High Court in Masaka seeking to reinstate a petition earlier withdrawn by Mbabali.

Mbabali told journalists on Tuesday at the DP Headquarters at City House in Kampala that he supports the application by his constituents.

He added, “The election petition is not a suit between two persons, but is a proceeding in which the constituency itself is a principal party interested and therefore the applicants who are all voters in Bukoto Central constituency missed the opportunity to object or be substituted as petitioners on hearing the purported application.”

In an earlier petition, Mbabaali sought to have Ssekandi’s election nullified, citing gross electoral malpractices. However, on July 17, he withdrew the case.

Explaining the circumstances under which he had initially withdrawn the petition in court, Mbabali said he had initially been prevailed upon by Bishop John Baptist Kaggwa and Buganda Katikkiro John Baptist Walusimbi to withdraw the case.

“I was requested by the two high-ranking persons to withdraw the petition in view of the fact that a new constituency where I would stand and represent my people in parliament, was in offing. They told me that Masaka district council had passed a resolution curving a new constituency out of the current Bukoto central,” Mbabali said in an affidavit.

Mbabali also said that Joseph Kalungi, the Masaka district chairperson too, had confirmed to him of the district council’s resolution passed to create the new constituency.

Mbabali contended that whereas his lawyer had made an oral application to withdraw the petition, the procedure use to withdraw the petition was improper and contravened the Parliamentary Elections petition Rules.

“It is in the interests of justice that the purported order granting leaver to withdraw the election petition, be set aside and the petition be heard on its merits as there is a good case against the respondents with high chances of success,” Mbabali swore in the affidavit.

“I am willing to pursue the election petition. Since I set the process in motion, I am bound to pursue the petition to its logical conclusion,” Mbabali said.