Tension After Court Nullifies Election Of Six Members Of Parliament

Tension After Court Nullifies Election Of Six Members Of Parliament

By Andrew Irumba

There is a lot of tension in Parliament currently after  the Constitutional Court  nullified the election  of six Members of Parliament on grounds that they Contested for non-existing vacancies .


The  affected legislators are from the newly created municipalities of Bugiri, Apac, Nebbi , Kotido, Ibanda and Sheema; and notably among these are Asuman Basalirwa of Bugiri Municiplaity , and Minister Elioda Tumwesigye for Sheema .

Some of the MPs who are likely to lose their seats


The ruling was made by 5 justices  including ; DCJ Alphonse Owiny-Dollo, Kenneth Kakuru, Cheborion Barishaki, Fredrick Engonda- Ntende and Christopher Madrama, who passed a unanimous agreement with the petitioner and a concerned citizen Eddie  Kwizera, that  the election of the 6 MPs before the dissolution of the  existing Parliamnet was null and  void.

Part Kwizera’s Petition to the Constitutional Court


The justices reasoned that the election of the 6 MPs cannot stand because they offered themselves to contest for constituencies  whose   administrative units, villages or cells had not yet  been demarcated  by the Electoral Commission as the law states, that such constituencies  created by division of others takes effect in the next general election.

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The Court explained that much as Parliament has the power to divide Uganda into so many constituencies and  the Electoral Commission is charged with a duty to ensure that each constituency is represented in parliament, this can only be done  during a General Election or  in a case of a  by -election after  the speaker of Parliament announces an existing vacancy.


To buttress their ruling , the justices further explained  that there were  representatives already   elected    during the 2016 general elections before the new municipalities were curved out   and that in any case, the Electoral Commission ought to have waited for the 2021 General elections to get representatives  for the new municipalities created in August  2018.


The Electoral Commission has  been faulted  and condemned to pay half of the total costs of the suit to Kwizera  for causing an inconvenience to innocent people (six affected MPs) by making them leave whatever they had to do and also incur costs for taking part in unlawful elections and  contest for non-existing vacancies.”

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