Man drags NRM, Museveni to court over irregularities that made him lose in party primaries

A man has dragged the ruling NRM party to the Civil Division of the High Court seeking to have results in all constituencies in the party primaries nullified.

According to Jackson Ntwatwa who contested against incumbent Eng. Kafeero Seekitoleko for Nakifuma constituency, the roadmap issued in July 2020, the elections were scheduled to be on September 10, 2020 and not September 4, 2020 as was held arguing that the same led to his loss.

“I started my campaigns and informed the electorate that the polling day is September 10, 2020  as per roadmap but to my surprise, at around September,2,I received rumors that the second and third respondents had changed the polling date to September,4 without  informing me and other co-candidates which caused gloss confusion contrary to the final roadmap issued to me.”

Ntwatwa also says that the NRM electoral commission was incompetent in organizing the elections which also saw him lose.

“The second and third respondents showed incompetence in organizing the party election thereby causing violence countrywide including shootings, rigging and assaulting of voters and agents,” he says.

According to Ntwatwa, he was surprised to see several candidates transporting voters from other districts to go and vote in Nakifuma and being given money in form of bribes, a thing he says showed incompetency of the NRM electoral commission that could not stop this illegality.

In the suit, President Museveni is also listed as a respondent and Ntwatwa says that by the NRM national chairman announcing that members not registered in the party register to participate in the elections, it gave chance to non-members to vote.

“The directive of the first respondent to allow non-members of NRM to vote was illegal, irregular and contrary to the constitution of NRM,”Ntwawa says.

Orders

In his suit, Ntwatwa wants court to declare the election of all NRM flagbearers conducted on September,4 illegal, irregular and of no consequence.

“The court should issue a declaration that the election of NRM flagbearers on September,4 was null and void and should be annulled countrywide. There should be a declaration that the directive of the first respondent (Museveni) to allow all persons with a national ID to vote in the party primaries even if not a registered member was illegal, contrary to the constitution of the National Resistance Movement.”

The case file has been allocated to justice Micheal Elubu who is yet to fix a hearing date .