There were no results on which EC boss announced Museveni winner-Lawyer

Counsel Mohammed Mbabazi making his submissions during Supreme Court hearing of defeated independent presidential candidate Amama Mbabazi's election petition challenging Mr Yoweri Museveni's victory. Photo by Dominic Bukenya

KAMPALA. The hearing of the presidential election petition challenging the re-election of President Museveni enters day two with petitioner Amama Mbabazi’s lawyers insisting there were not results that the EC boss Badru Kiggundu based on to announce President Yoweri Museveni winner of the February 18 polls.

Mr Mohammed Mbabazi, the lead advocate for Mr Mbabazi team, told the panel of nine justices of the Supreme Court that the Presidential Elections Act demands that for the results to be announced, they have to be based on declaration forms (DR forms), tally sheets and returns from the districts.
He went on to explain that the electoral body did not rely on any of the above to announce Mr Museveni the winner, before saying that the February 18 results are a nullity.
He also argued that Mbabazi’s agents who were based at Namboole national tally center were condemned to mere viewing of the already tallied results on the screens without them participating in the tallying process.

“Section 56 of the Presidential Elections Act was not complied with. This has been discharged by the petitioner (Mr Mbabazi).” submitted Mbabazi’s lawyer, Adding: “there were no Dr forms, no tally sheets and return forms from the districts upon which the 2nd respondent (EC) based upon to declare the 1st respondent (President Museveni) a winner.”
“We don’t have DR forms, we don’t have scanned copies and no returns from the districts, where are we ..”
The second issue that the Mr Mbabazi submitted upon to show noncompliance on the part of the EC was that of the biometric voters’ machines.
Mr Mbabazi argued that despite Mr Kiggundu coming to court yesterday to heap praise of these machines for having perfectly done the work well with each machine taking 30 seconds to verify a voter, Mr Mbabazi said evidence before him from the polling agents who were in the field, shows that the machines were slow and that some even took two minutes to verify a voter.

The other noncompliance issue that Mr Mbabazi tackled was that the electronic transmission of results from the districts to the national tally center.
Mr Mbabazi submitted that the existing law does not permit the electronic transmission of results but rather by use of hard copies of DR forms and tally sheets.
He further submitted that in countries where there is electronic transmission of results is allowed like in Kenya, Ghana and Philippines, there is an enabling law to that effect which is not the case here The hearing continues with Mr Asuman Basalirwa also from the Mbabazi legal team submitting on the noncompliance by the EC in regard to the voter’s register.