MBALE: Ivan Masaba, the former parliamentary candidate for the Mbale City Northern Division, has asked the Court of Appeal to cancel the results from the Makosi Trading Center Polling Station from the final tally.
During the January 14th, 2021 polls, Masaba polled 9415 votes against the 9854 votes garnered by his rival, Seth Kizangi Massa Wambede. Masaba lost with a margin of 954 votes. He petitioned Mbale High Court, accusing Masaba of falsifying the results from the Makosi Trading Center polling station in Bukonde and ballot stuffing.
However, Mbale High Court dismissed the petition, citing insufficient evidence by the applicant. Masaba told the three-person panel of the Court of Appeal on Tuesday that the lower court made a mistake when it didn’t look into the results from the Makosi polling station, which is where the election was held.
He also noted that it was unfair for the lower court to ignore the evidence of the deaths of two voters from Makosi polling station prior to the vote, yet the declaration of results showed that all registered voters turned up.
Besides asking the Court of appeal to cancel the results, Masaba also argues that his case was determined by a standard of proof higher than that required in parliamentary election petitions.
However, Wambede, through his lawyer, Geoffrey Komakech of M/S Victoria and Legal Advocates, asked the court of appeal to determine the matter based on the query around the standard of proof, which came up as issue number 2 in Masaba’s appeal.
If the appeal is based on issue number 2, which is answered in the negative, then the appeal will collapse, “he said. The judges said that they would give their decision on notice after they had looked over the arguments from both sides.