The republic of uganda in the supreme court of uganda at kampala

Failure to comply with ss.28 and 32(5) of the Act:

The Petitioner did not adduce evidence on the effect of non-compliance with S.28 of the Act. However, by way of arguments it was contended that because the Petitioner was not made aware of all the polling stations in time, he was deprived of the opportunity to appoint agents at the new polling stations. Even that argument was not seriously canvassed. No evidence was brought to show, in actual terms, at how many polling stations the Petitioner was not represented because he was not notified, or was belatedly notified of them. In my view that was necessary before inviting the Court to infer that the omission affected the result. But an attempt was made through Mukasa David Bulonge, Head of Election Management in the Petitioner’s Task Force. He deponed in a supplementary affidavit that he selected as sample from tally sheets from Mbarara, Bushenyi, Kamuli and Pader districts, results of twenty polling stations which were not gazetted. He concluded from those results that the l Respondent “received a far higher percentage of the votes cast in the newly created polling stations (ranging between 72% and 100/%) than he did nationwide (69.3%).” Even if that conclusion had been taken as correct, and there were several reasons to suggest that it was not accurately representative of 1,176 new polling stations, it is not a fact from which any reasonable court would infer, conclusively that if the polling stations had been gazetted and the Petitioner was represented thereat by polling agents, the voting, and consequently the result would have been different. Nor can a court of law infer from that conclusion that all or any votes cast in those polling stations were irregularly cast, as was submitted by Mr. Mbabazi in respect of what he called “ghost” polling stations. I venture to say that the evidence would have carried more weight if Mukasa David Bulonge had focused on new polling stations in respect of which there was evidence of irregular voting.

Similarly I did not find evidence that proved directly, or from which it could be inferred, that failure on the 2nd Respondent’s part to avail copies of voters’ roll for use by the Petitioner’s agents as required under s.32(5) affected, or could have affected, the result of the election.