NRM’s Tiperu withdraws case challenging Kassiano Wadri’s election

National Resistance Movement’s Nusura Tiperu has withdrawn a case in which she had appealed against a High Court judgment in which it threw out her petition challenging Kassiano Wadri’s election as Arua Municipality Member of Parliament.

Arua High Court in March 2019 dismissed Tiperu’s petition against the Arua Municipality by-election saying the petitioner had failed to convince the judge that there were irregularities in the electoral process as she had alleged.

Dissatisfied with the ruling Tiperu ran to the court of Appeal to challenge the lower court’s decision.

However, on Monday when the case turned up for hearing before a panel of three justices including Geoffrey Kiryabwire, Elizabeth Musoke and Irene Mulyagonja Tiperu’s lawyers led by Rashid Babu told court that they had been instructed by their client to withdraw the appeal.

“The appeal was fixed for hearing this morning but when we served our client, she said she had lost interest in the appeal. We have already filed a withdrawal notice dated July,16, 2020 and served the respondents,”Babu told court.

Wadri’s legal team led by Renato Kania told court that they have received the withdrawal notice and that they agree to it.

In response, the judges accepted to withdraw the appeal from the court records but ordered Tiperu to pay costs to Wadri.

“Since the respondent doesn’t object to the withdrawal notice, we allow it but we order costs to the respondents,” justice Kiryabwire said.

Background

Kassiano Wadri won the Arua Municipality by-election with 6,421 votes against Tiperu’s 4,798 votes, prompting the latter to challenge the election in the High Court.

Tiperu cited that the election had been marred with irregularities including violence, intimidation, multiple registrations, voter bribery and denial of equal opportunity during the campaign period by the Electoral Commission that she said contravened provisions of the Parliamentary Act.

However, her petition was dismissed for lack of credible witnesses.

The court also ordered Tiperu to pay 83 million shillings as costs incurred by Kassiano during the petition.

https://nilepost.co.ug/2019/12/06/court-orders-for-arrest-of-nrms-nusura-tiperu/