Nyakato absent for hearing of her electoral petition

Masindi High Court resident judge, Paul Wolimbwa Gadenya, has directed Asinansi Nyakato and her lawyer to file her submissions by Friday this week in the application seeking to nullify Harriet Businge's election.

Businge was elected the Woman MP for Hoima district in the by-election which was held in September last year.

The Electoral Commission declared Businge the winner after garnering 33,301 votes against Nyakato's 28,789. A total number of 62,090 votes were cast and 1690 were invalidated.

However, Nyakato was not content with the results hence petitioning the Masindi High Court to reverse the result.

On October 30, 2019, Nyakato filed an election petition through her lawyer Muhamad Mbabazi at Masindi High Court citing voter bribery, intimidation, and vote-rigging among others.

On of February 20, 2020, the same applicant filed another petition asking the court to compel the Electoral Commission to produce the voters' register, biometric voter verification machines, the deliveries of voter material, and the declaration forms to enable them to ascertain whether they were tallying with what was announced.

All the parties were supposed to appear in court, however, only Patrick Wetaka the lawyer representing the Electoral Commission and Moses Kabega representing Harriet Businge were in court.

Neither Nyakato nor her lawyer was in court but Simon Kasangaki who said he was standing in for  Muhammad Mbabazi the lawyer representing Nyakato, told the court that Mbabazi was still on the way.

This prompted Gadenya to direct Nyakato's lawyer to file her submissions for the two applications by Friday and serve the two respondents on Monday next week.

Kabega was also ordered to file his response on Wednesday next week.

Gadenya adjourned the matter to July 24, 2020, and only then did Nyakato and her lawyer come to court.