Musumba sues Kadaga for alleged poll offences

            
Forum for Democratic Change vice president  Proscovia Salaamu Musumba  has sued the  Speaker of Parliament, Ms Rebecca Kadaga, for allegedly rigging  Kamuli District Woman parliamentary  seat.

Ms  Musumuba accuses Ms Kadaga (NRM), who was declared winner of the January 14 election , of committing numerous electoral offences before and during the polls.

In a petition filed before the High Court in Jinja, Ms Musumba, who contested against Ms Kadaga , alleges that the Electoral Commission (EC) returning officer for Kamuli District arbitrarily and irregularly declared Ms Kadaga as the elected Kamuli District Woman MP. 
 
Ms Musumba says she is dissatisfied with the manner in which the EC conducted the elections. 

 “During the campaign period, with the intent of influencing voters, the first respondent (Kadaga) personally and through her agents with her knowledge, consent and approval bribed voters with money, gifts like tents, motor vehicles, motorcycles, money, chicks/chicken, iron sheets, hand hoes, gomesi and many other considerations,” Ms Musumba’s  petition reads in part.

She claims that the Speaker engaged in illegal acts which infringed on the provisions of electoral laws.

 “…she [Kadaga] organised groups to meet  and threaten violence against the petitioner and her supporters, defaced campaign posters in Nabwigulu Sub-county, Kamuli Municipality, Kitayunjwa Sub-county, Magogo Sub-county, Bulawali Sub-county and other places in the district,” Ms Musumba states in her petition.

Accusations against EC
Ms Musumba alleges that in the conduct of the elections in Kamuli, the EC grossly failed in its constitutional duty of organising a free and fair election.

She claims that the electoral body agents refused or failed to properly use the biometric voter identification machines at most of the polling stations.

“Agents of second respondent (EC) presided over malpractices at polling stations like ballot stuffing, falsifying declaration of results forms, forcing agents of the petitioner to sign declaration result forms; EC went about the entire electoral process with incompetence, glaring and abhorable bias, partiality, malafide and prejudice against the candidature and the person of the petitioner,” reads the petition.

Ms Musumba alleges that her genuine poll results were reduced at several polling stations while inflating the votes for Ms Kadaga thereby denying her deserved victory. 

She also alleges that the EC selectively recruited polling officials hostile to her and intentionally doing so to assault the tenets of level-ground competition and fair play thereby compromising the electoral process .

Meanwhile, Ms Kadaga and EC are yet to respond to the petition.     Through her lawyers, Ms Musumba is now seeking  court orders to nullify Ms Kadaga’s election and direct the EC to conduct free and fair election.