High Court Stops Count In Mbarara

By Okello Jabweli THE High Court in Mbarara yesterday halted the vote recount exercise in the Municipality. The order followed an application to the High Court by Winnie Byanyima, the area Member of Parliament who asked the court to overrule the Mbarara Chief Magistrate, Cissy Mudhasi's order for the recount. Yusuf Ngoma Ngime, Byanyima's sole opponent petitioned the Mbarara Chief Magistrates Court to have the ballots recounted. Byanyima beat Ngime in the June 26 parliamentary elections by a narrow margin of 164 votes. In a terse two-page order signed by Justice V. F. Musoke-Kibuuka, the Court also ordered that the recording of the hearing in the Chief Magistrate's Court be transferred to the High Court in Kampala. It set Tuesday July 10 as the date for hearing Byanyima's application. "Upon perusal of notice of motion and the affidavit in support of the motion as well as all the annextures to that affidavit and upon hearing Mr. Ngaruye Ruhindi and Julius Musoke, counsel for the applicant, this Court doth order that the recounting of votes of each parliamentary candidate for the constituency of Mbarara Municipality in the recently concluded elections be stayed," the judge ordered. The judge also ordered that all election materials which had been ferried to the Chief Magistrate's Court for purposes of the recount remain in that court until the final determination of Byanyima's application. He ordered the Electoral Commission to provide security for them. Byanyima said Mudhasi erred in law when she ordered the recount. The judge's July 6 order, was delivered to Mudhasi by Byanyima's lead lawyer Ruhindi at 11:30am yesterday during the second day of the gruelling vote-recount exercise. While Ngime looked relaxed and laid back during the recount, Byanyima looked tense. She and her lawyer Caleb Alaka, kept interrupting the recount with several points of clarifications. Byanyima also kept grumbling, shaking her head and mumbling words of disapproval, prompting Mudhasi to address her with a raised tone. At one point, Mudhasi told Alaka to advise his client "to be polite and not emotional." "Your worship I have an order from a judge of the High Court. By order these proceedings are being stopped," Ngaruye said moments after entering the fully-packed and tense courtroom. His submission took the court by surprise, prompting Mudhasi to say, "Please let me first read so I can know what I am being ordered to do." After she perused the document, Mudhasi declared, "Under the circumstances, the hands of this court are tied and it is a wastage of time for both counsels to continue submitting. The proceedings in this court are hereby stayed." By the time Ngaruye handed Mudhasi the order, the Court was winding up the recount of the second ballot box of the day. In the recount for Nyamitobora 8 Byanyima got 209 votes while Ngime secured 137. While Ngime's results remained the same at these polling stations, the original tally for this area had given Byanyima 208 votes. Ends