The Ibanda Chief Magistrate’s Court has thrown out an application for a vote recount for the Ibanda North MP seat.
The application was filed by Major David Guma Gumisiriza, the incumbent Member of Parliament for Ibanda North against the winner Xavier Kyooma Akampurira.
According to the results, Kyooma got 13,513 votes against Gumisiriza’s 13,186 votes while others in the race were Gilbert Mugisha 165 vote and Gabriel Semakula trailed with 142 votes.
In the application, Gumisiriza says that there was fraudulent tallying of votes from some polling stations in Ibanda North, which denied him victory.
However Xavier’s lawyer Ngaruye Ruhindi asked the court to throw it out on three grounds which include failure by Gumisiriza to pay court fees on time for his application, failure to indicate in the application which specific polling stations where the recount should be done.
Ruhindi also says that Gumisiriza never informed the Ibanda District returning officer before he transmitted the election results to the Electoral Commission of his intention.
In the ruling, Moses Kagoda, the Ibanda Chief Magistrate upheld the reasons raised by Kyooma’s counsel and dismissed the application with costs.
