Mr. Fred Tumwesigye (L) and Mr Dedan Mubangizi (R) during the court session on January 28,2026 .
By Maria Mariam Namala
The High Court in Mubende has nullified the election of Buwekula South Member of Parliament Dedan Mubangizi and ordered a fresh election after finding that failures in the handling and preservation of electoral materials substantially affected the results.
In a judgment delivered on Friday, November 13, 2026, Acting High Court Judge Mary Babirye ruled that Mr Mubangizi was not validly elected, setting aside his declaration and subsequent gazettement as the constituency’s MP.
The court also declared the parliamentary seat vacant and directed the Electoral Commission to organise a fresh election in Buwekula South as if it were a by-election.
The decision followed an election petition filed by independent candidate Fred Tumwesigye, who challenged Mr Mubangizi’s victory after a court-supervised recount overturned the initial results.
On January 16, 2026, the Mubende District Returning Officer declared Mr Tumwesigye the winner with 8,804 votes against Mr Mubangizi’s 7,998, giving him a majority of 806 votes. National Unity Platform candidate Edward Sempiira came third with 1,915 votes.
However, following an application by Mr Mubangizi, the Chief Magistrate’s Court in Mubende ordered a recount of votes from 89 polling stations.
The recount, completed on January 28, reversed the outcome, giving Mr Mubangizi 7,908 votes against Mr Tumwesigye’s 7,504, while Mr Sempiira obtained 1,879 votes.
Mr Mubangizi was subsequently declared the winner and gazetted on March 4, 2026.
Dissatisfied with the outcome, Mr Tumwesigye petitioned the High Court, alleging that electoral materials had been interfered with while under the custody of the Electoral Commission and the district returning officer.
He cited missing ballot papers, discrepancies in seal serial numbers, damaged tamper-proof envelopes, missing declaration of results forms and differences between the original polling-day results and the recount figures.
In her judgment, Justice Babirye found that the authentication and safekeeping of the challenged electoral materials had not been satisfactorily demonstrated in accordance with the Parliamentary Elections Act.
The judge particularly pointed to the ballot box from Namalewe Life Centre Compound in Kyabaduuma, where the recount team reportedly found 300 unused ballot papers and seven used booklets but no cast ballots or declaration of results form.
The court noted that polling records showed that voting had taken place at the station, making the absence of the cast ballots a significant concern.
The judge also cited discrepancies at several polling stations where Mr Tumwesigye’s votes reduced during the recount without a satisfactory explanation from the electoral officials.
According to the judgment, Mr Tumwesigye’s votes reduced by 1,300, compared with a reduction of 90 votes for Mr Mubangizi and 36 for Mr Sempiira.
The overall valid votes also dropped from 18,717 in the original declaration to 17,291 after the recount.
Justice Babirye said the Returning Officer, Mulekezi T. Ferdinand, failed to provide a satisfactory account of the custody and preservation of the electoral materials.
During cross-examination, Mr Mulekezi admitted that his office did not have a custody register and that he could not establish how many security seals had been supplied or whether all the seals had been used.
He also told court that there was no inventory of unused seals and acknowledged that he had only partially attended the recount exercise.
The judge concluded that the failures in authentication and preservation, together with the discrepancies in the recount, substantially affected the election results.
However, the court declined to declare Mr Tumwesigye the duly elected MP, saying the available evidence was insufficient to establish a reliable and complete tally of votes across the constituency.
“The failure of the recount does not, without a further evidential finding, prove every figure in the original return,” Justice Babirye observed.
She added that the court could not award missing votes to either candidate where the relevant ballots and records were unavailable.
The judge consequently ordered the Electoral Commission to conduct a fresh election across the entire Buwekula South constituency rather than restrict the exercise to polling stations where irregularities had been recorded.
The court further directed that Mr Mubangizi vacates the parliamentary seat forthwith.
On the conduct of electoral officials, Justice Babirye found that the Returning Officer’s unexplained failure to discharge his statutory duty of safeguarding electoral materials fell within section 97(g) of the Parliamentary Elections Act.
She ordered the Registrar to transmit the judgment and relevant records to the Director of Public Prosecutions for appropriate investigation.
However, the judge clarified that the court had not established who physically removed or altered particular electoral materials and made no finding of criminal liability against any individual.
The court also ordered Mr Mubangizi, the Electoral Commission and the Returning Officer to jointly and severally pay Mr Tumwesigye’s costs of the petition.