By KT Reporter
The Electoral Commission (EC) has advised Tony Awany, the loser in the Nwoya County parliamentary election, to go to court if he feels dissatisfied with the election results.
Over the weekend, Awany petitioned the Electoral Commission seeking a recount of the votes, citing the slim margin of defeat.
Daniel Baguma, the Nwoya District Returning Officer, confirmed on Tuesday that the commission had received Awany’s application for a recount. However, Baguma said the EC advised Awany to pursue the matter in court.
“He had applied for a recount, but we directed him to go to court. So we don’t know whether he will apply to court for a recount, but for us, we wrote back advising him to take the court decision,” Baguma said.
Baguma added that Awany is the only parliamentary candidate in the district who has protested the declared election results and sought a recount.
Awany, the incumbent legislator who contested on the National Resistance Movement (NRM) ticket, lost the hotly contested race to Democratic Party (DP) candidate Denish Geoffrey Komakech. Komakech garnered 5,044 votes, while Awany polled 5,022 votes, a narrow margin of just 22 votes.
Meanwhile, the Nwoya County Member of Parliament-elect, Denish Geoffrey Komakech, told Uganda Radio Network on Wednesday that he is not shaken by the recount application, describing it as an attempt that is bound to fail.
Komakech said it was surprising that Awany is seeking a recount, noting that neither Awany nor his agents contested the results as they were being declared at the Electoral Commission tally centre.
“All through the period we were at the tally centre and they were reading the results per polling station, there wasn’t a single rejection of the figures being read,” Komakech said.
He added that the results declared at the tally centre were signed by polling agents, an indication that they were satisfied with the outcome.
Efforts to obtain a comment from Awany have been futile over the last two days, as he has not returned repeated phone calls or responded to messages sent to his known WhatsApp number.
Awany was first elected to Parliament in 2021 and served as the Deputy Chairperson of the Physical Infrastructure Committee of Parliament.
In a related development in Aruu County in Pader district, veteran politician Samuel Odonga Otto has also challenged the results of the recent parliamentary election after narrowly losing to the incumbent MP-elect, Christopher Komakech of the NRM party. Odonga Otto polled 10,429 votes, while Komakech secured 10,455 votes, a margin of 26 votes.
Odonga Otto, who was seeking a return in the 12th Parliament, has since described the results as questionable and threatened to take legal action.
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