Court Throws Out Election Petition Against Mityana North MP

The High Court in Mubende has dismissed with costs, an election petition in which a former contestant for the Mityana North Parliamentary seat, Dr Gordon Sematiko Katende was challenging the election of Nsegumire Muhammad Kibedi.

High Court Judge, Justice Emmanuel Baguma on Friday ruled that Dr Sematiko’s claims of bribery and defamation were not supported with sufficient evidence to annul an election.

Justice Baguma ruled that Dr Sematiko failed to prove the bribery claims because there was no corroboration of the evidence from the people who allegedly received the money.

“In court’s view, the witnesses did not adduce evidence to prove that the people who were bribed with sugar were registered voters neither did he adduce any evidence to show that the people distributing sugar were agents of the Kibedi),” the judge ruled.      

On acts of defamation against Dr Sematiko, a candidate for the opposition National Unity Platform – NUP, the court held that there is no evidence of acts of defamation adduced by the witnesses because they did not state out the exact words in verbatim.  

“The said defamatory statements were allegedly recorded in the video and the translated version from Luganda to English was not clear since court could not even pick any defamatory statement about the personal character of the Petitioner in verbatim,” reads the court decision. 

According to Justice Baguma, all the statements of the witnesses about the defamatory statements could not be traced in the video and their evidence was not credible but full of inconsistencies and contradictions which could not be believed by court.

Dr Sematiko, the former Executive Secretary at National Drug Authority- NDA challenged the victory of Kibedi on grounds of bribery and making and publishing of false statements by words concerning his character. 

Dr Sematiko had accused Kibedi of making and publishing false statements by words concerning his character before the election with the sole purpose of tarnishing his name thereby preventing voters from electing him MP.  

Kibedi said the court decision was a confirmation that he was a validly elected MP for Mityana North Constituency and that the truth has been revealed.  Kibedi also accused Dr Sematiko of vote-rigging saying he should have been the right person to petition court. He advised his rival to desist from appealing because it would only increase legal costs.

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Sematiko says that he needs time to read and understand the court judgement before he thinks of the next action.

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In the elections, Kibedi polled 13,784 votes against Sematiko’s 13,557 votes. The other contestants were Grace Kintu, Freddie who got 551, Shingiiro Didas Kayonga 485 votes, Byron Mutyaba 406 votes, Kasule Onesimu 332, James Lubega 217 and Keya Watson Ronald polled 144 votes.