Court upholds MP Ssentayi’s victory  

Masaka High Court upheld the election of Muhamad Muyanja Ssentayi as Bukoto West MP after dismissing a petition challenging his victory.
Justice Esther Nambayo dismissed the petition filed by Mr Ssentayi’s challenger in the January 14 general election, Olivia Mugabe.

Mugabe, through her lawyers led by Caleb Alaka had claimed that the electoral process was marred by irregularities, arguing that Ssentayi was nominated illegally after he allegedly forged academic documents which he used for his nomination to contest for the parliamentary seat.

However, Ssentayi's lawyers led by Geofrey Ntambirweki Kandeebe had contended that Mugabe failed to adduce enough evidence to support her claims.
He said his client swore a deed poll to officially change his names and asked court to dismiss the Mugabe’s petition. Consequently, Justice Nambayo in her ruling dismissed the petition on grounds that it lacked merit.
According to the judge, swearing a deed poll does not mean Ssentayi ought to have forfeited all the rights attached to his initial name.

 It was also established that the biometric voter’s verification system which stores registered voters data cleared Ssentayi as a registered voter under the names of Ssentayi Muhamad before he was allowed to vote and this would mean that the Ssentayi was at the time of his election, qualified for election as a member of parliament.  
“Therefore, I find no merit in this petition and I hereby dismiss it with costs to the respondents. I so order,” the judge ruled.
 
Ssentayi welcomed the court decision saying that it was time to work for his constituents before asking his rivals political to join him to develop the area.
"We are so happy that court has upheld our victory. We still stand on the promise we made to the electorate; we shall serve you but we need those people to apologise to the voters for the delays and time we have spent in court because we would have started serving the electorate long ago,” he said.

However, Mugabe could not be accessed for a comment by the time of filing this story as our repeated phone calls to her known number went unanswered.