Rebecca Kadaga, the First Deputy Prime Minister, has said that mafias are behind FDC’s Salaamu Musumba’s petition challenging her January win in the Kamuli District Woman MP elections.
The First Deputy Prime Minister, Rebecca Kadaga has said mafias are behind FDC’s Salaamu Musumba’s petition challenging her January victory in the Kamuli District Woman MP elections.
Kadaga’s comments come after Musumba decided to withdraw her election petition in which she had accused the incumbent of bribing voters.
Kadaga was declared the winner of the Kamuli legislative seat garnering 92,388 votes compared to Musumba’s 26,851 votes.
Musumba who has since raised dissatisfaction towards the outcome earlier on filed a petition alleging that Kadaga had rigged the elections and influenced many of the voters.
In her petition to the Jinja High Court, Musumba who called for re-election also sued the Electoral Commission for allegedly failing to conduct a free and fair election contrary to what is written in the constitution.
“It is against the above background that Musumba wants the court to nullify Kadaga’s victory and order for fresh elections in Kamuli district. The judiciary assigned four judges to handle election petition cases at the Jinja High Court circuit,” a court statement read.
“Jinja High Court circuit has the second-highest number of judges to handle election petitions after Mbale high court circuit that was assigned six judges to handle 31 petitions. The judiciary commenced hearing of parliamentary election petitions on Monday, August 16, 2021.”
This was after the principal judge Dr Flavian Zeija assigned 32 judges to expedite the handling of 155 parliamentary and local council election petitions in the different high court circuits across the country.
With this in mind, however, Musumba withdrew the petition accepting to move on with what was decided by the Electoral Commission.
However, speaking about the situation, the former Speaker of Parliament said Musumba’s petition was baseless and only influenced by people whom she referred to as mafias.
Kadaga who was also quick to applaud his lawyers for the tremendous job done said it’s ridiculous for anyone to think that they can overturn a vote margin of over 60,000 votes.
“Am honoured to have been represented by Star studded team of JM Mugisha, C Alaka , E Ocieng, E Okuo in demolishing the fictitious, concocted, mafia sponsored and backed petition of Salaam Musumba. You cannot overturn a margin of over 60.000 votes” Kadaga said.
