The Nabweru Chief Magistrate’s Court has overturned the election of Joseph Natamba as directly elected councillor for Nansana 7/8 Ochieng Ward, popularly known as Yesu Amala, after finding that declaration of results (DR) forms from 12 polling stations had been altered in his favour. In a judgment delivered electronically on Friday, October 23, Chief Magistrate Hood Matovu declared Kuraish Ntale Kalema, the National Unity Platform (NUP) flag-bearer, the validly elected councillor for Nansana Municipality in Wakiso District.
The court also ordered the Electoral Commission to degazette Natamba, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) candidate, and gazette Ntale as the duly elected councillor. “The petitioner (Ntale) is declared the validly elected candidate and the winner… having scored the highest number of votes, 638, as opposed to the first respondent (Natamba), who scored 165 votes,” the judgment reads in part.
Natamba was officially declared the winner of the January 27 election with 1,143 votes against Ntale’s 716. Kato Rashid polled 172 votes, while Kajubi Ismail Saava received 100, bringing the total to 2,131 votes. The Electoral Commission gazetted the results on May 15. Ntale, who filed his election petition on May 27, challenged the results, arguing that the figures announced by the Electoral Commission differed significantly from those recorded on declaration of results forms issued to his polling station agents.
He told the court that he had agents at all 22 polling stations and that each received a candidate’s copy of the declaration of results form. According to his tally of the forms, Ntale had secured 638 votes, Natamba 165, Kato 178 and Kajubi 113. The forms recorded 1,094 valid votes and five spoiled ballots.
The dispute arose from a tense tallying process at the Wakiso District tally centre in late January, when NUP candidates protested against results they said differed from the forms signed by their agents at polling stations. Some candidates accused election officials of announcing figures that did not match the polling station records. Security personnel ejected several protesters, including Immaculate Namanda, the NUP woman councillor candidate for Wamala Ward, after she confronted the returning officer.
Ntale testified that returning officer Tolbert Musinguzi did not announce the scores from individual polling stations but instead declared Natamba the winner. He said he presented his copies of the declaration of results forms and asked the returning officer to require Natamba to produce his own copies. Ntale was subsequently advised to seek redress in court. His evidence was supported by Nantongo Lillian, Kiwanuka Dennis Bukenya Shaghaf and Kakembo Sudaice, who contested other positions in the same election and also served as his agents at various polling stations.
Lawyers representing Natamba and the Electoral Commission urged the court to disregard Ntale’s forms, describing them as uncertified documents of “unknown origin”. However, Matovu rejected the argument, citing Section 148 of the Local Governments Act, which requires presiding officers to provide each candidate’s agent with a signed copy of the declaration of results form. The magistrate said the lawyers could not claim ignorance of the forms’ origin “unless they chose to close their eyes to the clear provisions of the law”.
A comparison of the two sets of forms revealed significant discrepancies. At polling station 016, Nansana Ochieng II (Namam-Z), the certified form credited Natamba with 129 votes and Ntale with 20, while the total votes box was marked zero. The candidate’s copy, however, showed Natamba with four votes and Ntale with 36, alongside 45 valid votes and two spoiled ballots. At polling station 015, Windsor Primary School (Nag-Nanse), the certified form recorded 150 votes for Natamba and 100 for Ntale. The candidate’s copy showed Natamba with seven votes and Ntale with 33. The magistrate also found that several certified forms, including those for polling station 007 at Nansana Ochieng II (A-Mas), Masjid Rahman; station 016 at Nansana Ochieng II (Namam-Z); and station 020 at Alliance High School Nansana (Namam-Nangi), lacked the presiding officer’s signature.
“Without a signature, a document cannot be what it purports to be,” Matovu said. At station 007, the court observed that some figures appeared to have been overwritten, while an entry for female voters appeared to have been added using different ink. Matovu further questioned why presiding officers had failed to sign the forms despite an explicit instruction at the bottom of the first page requiring them to ensure that all information was completed and signed.
Section 148 of the Local Government Act provides for the completion and transmission of declaration of results forms. Subsection (1) requires each presiding officer to complete the prescribed number of copies of Form EC 9, as provided for in Schedule 8 of the Act, and sign them. In one unsigned form, the magistrate found that several figures had been visibly altered. These included the figure one in Natamba’s tally of 130 votes and the figure eight in Ntale’s tally of 84 votes.
An additional figure, written in different ink, had also been inserted into the total number of female voters, making the figure appear as 125. The court also observed that the signatures of Emmanuel Luyima, Natamba’s agent, and Nabbosa, Kato Rashid’s agent, differed from those appearing on other forms submitted as evidence. Matovu was further struck by the absence of spoiled ballots on all 12 certified forms, despite Ntale’s copies recording spoiled ballots at several polling stations.
“Such a perfect score is impossible to achieve in local government elections,” he said. Natamba told the court that the Electoral Commission had suspended the use of Biometric Voter Verification Kits (BVVKs) and directed election officials to use manual registers. However, Matovu found that the biometric kits had been used at nine polling stations, with their records providing an independent basis for examining the disputed results.
The Electoral Commission introduced BVVKs during the 2016 general elections to authenticate voters through fingerprint verification, prevent multiple voting and curb impersonation. The technology is intended to support the one-person, one-vote principle and strengthen electoral integrity. Although the use of the kits was limited or suspended during some phases of the 2026 elections, data generated at polling stations where they operated became central to Ntale’s petition.
At polling stations 004, 005 and 016, the kits recorded 67, 54 and 47 verified voters, respectively. Ntale’s copies showed 67, 53 and 45 votes, respectively, with two spoiled ballots recorded at the third station. The certified forms, however, showed 132, 93 and 154 votes at the three stations. In his judgment, Matovu questioned how the Electoral Commission, which had issued both the BVVK report and the certified declaration of results forms, could produce such conflicting figures.
He also questioned why Ntale’s copies corresponded with the biometric records at polling stations where the kits had been used. “The answer is somewhat clear: there was personal interference with the DR forms… but the person who did so could not change what was captured in the BVVK… just overlooked it,” Matovu ruled. The court did not identify the individuals who altered the forms. However, it held that Natamba and the Electoral Commission, “by themselves or through their agents”, knew of or participated in the irregularities.
“Can we assume that neither of them knew about the forgery?” Matovu asked, adding that answering in the affirmative “will be akin to behaving like an ostrich which hides its head in the sand”. The magistrate described Natamba as the “only net beneficiary” of the alterations. He noted that Natamba had agents at all but two of the 22 polling stations and that those agents had signed the forms and were entitled to receive copies.
However, Natamba did not produce any of his agents’ copies to support the Electoral Commission’s certified results, a failure the magistrate described as “a mystery”. Ntale told the court that the inflation of Natamba’s tally amounted to 1,099 votes. The magistrate found that the discrepancies were substantial enough to alter the election outcome, noting that in local government elections decided by a simple majority, “every vote matter”. The court consequently declared Ntale the validly elected councillor and ordered the Electoral Commission to update its official records accordingly.
Natamba and the Electoral Commission were also ordered to pay the costs of the petition. Both had maintained that the election was free and fair and argued that Ntale’s agents had not raised complaints at polling stations on election day. Their lawyers had dismissed Ntale’s petition as the tantrums of a jilted lover, arguing that he had presented no evidence to support his allegations-URN. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
