The High Court in Kampala has dismissed an application by former Kawempe Division South parliamentary candidate Fred Nyanzi Ssentamu seeking access to original electoral documents from 73 polling stations in his election petition challenging the victory of his rival, Madina Ntale Nsereko.
Lady Justice Faridah Shamilah Bukirwa Ntambi, sitting in the Civil Division on Tuesday, dismissed the application after finding that Nyanzi had not provided sufficient evidence to justify an order for discovery and inspection of the documents.
Nyanzi, a National Unity Platform (NUP) candidate, is challenging the results of the January 15, 2026 parliamentary election in which Ntale Nsereko of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) was declared the winner with 18,591 votes against Nyanzi’s 11,292, a margin of 7,299 votes. Nyanzi wants the court to annul Nsereko’s election and declare him the duly elected Member of Parliament for Kawempe Division South.
In his application, Nyanzi asked the court to compel the Electoral Commission to produce and allow inspection of various electoral records from the 73 contested polling stations. The documents included Official Report Books, original Declaration of Results Forms, Accountability of Ballot Paper Forms, Scanner Print-Out Reports and Deployment Books. Nyanzi cited several polling stations where he alleges discrepancies between results obtained by his polling agents and certified results held by the Electoral Commission.
At St James Church polling station, for example, he claimed that a Declaration of Results Form obtained by his agents showed Nsereko with 37 votes, while the tally sheet allegedly recorded 237 votes. He raised similar allegations concerning Polio Clinic, Caltech Playground, Mutigwedembe and Kainamula’s Place polling stations.
Nyanzi further alleged that votes were switched between him and Nsereko at 20 polling stations, while results from another 53 stations were subsequently altered or manipulated in favour of Nsereko.
According to Nyanzi, copies of the Declaration of Results Forms obtained from his polling agents indicated that he had secured 15,996 votes against Nsereko’s 10,267. He said, however, that security personnel took four of the forms from his agents.
He also sought an order compelling Nsereko to produce her original Declaration of Results Forms for the 73 polling stations, arguing that the copies held by his agents differed substantially from certified copies in the custody of the Electoral Commission.
Nyanzi told the court that he had attempted to obtain the documents from the Electoral Commission before filing the application but was unsuccessful. He argued that access to the originals was necessary to establish whether votes had been added, switched or otherwise altered in favour of Nsereko.
The Electoral Commission and Nsereko opposed the application, arguing that Nyanzi had failed to establish sufficient grounds for discovery and inspection.
They contended that the documents sought had not been shown to be necessary for determining the issues raised in the election petition. They also described the request as a fishing expedition, noting that Nyanzi already had Declaration of Results Forms obtained through his agents and that Nsereko’s relevant forms had been attached to her response to the petition.
The respondents also raised a preliminary objection, arguing that the application was premature and could delay the expedited hearing of the election petition.
Justice Bukirwa Ntambi rejected that objection, holding that the respondents had not identified any law preventing Nyanzi from seeking discovery and inspection before the substantive hearing. She noted that although election petitions are subject to an expedited procedure, that requirement did not, by itself, make the application premature.
The judge, however, found that Nyanzi had failed to establish the evidential basis required for the court to order production of the documents. Justice Bukirwa said discovery may be ordered where documents are relevant and material to the issues in dispute, are in the possession or custody of the respondent, are not legally protected, and where reasonable attempts have been made to obtain them voluntarily.
In this case, the court found that Nyanzi had identified the 73 polling stations and listed alleged irregularities but had not attached the specific Declaration of Results Forms he claimed had been issued to his polling agents.
As a result, the court said it could not make a preliminary comparison between the forms allegedly obtained by Nyanzi’s agents and the certified copies held by the Electoral Commission.
The judge also noted that a certified copy is ordinarily intended to be a true copy of the original record it represents. Nyanzi, she said, had not provided sufficient evidence showing that the certified forms were inaccurate or differed from the originals.
The court similarly rejected Nyanzi’s request for the Electoral Commission’s other records, including ballot accountability forms, scanner reports, Official Report Books and Deployment Books.
Justice Bukirwa said Nyanzi had not identified specific entries, incidents or discrepancies in those records that could demonstrate that the results differed from those contained in the certified Declaration of Results Forms.
Ordering production of all the requested documents in the circumstances, the judge said, would effectively require the court to retrace the electoral process without a clear indication of what additional facts the exercise was intended to establish.
The court also found that seeking Nsereko’s original Declaration of Results Forms did not cure the evidential gap because Nyanzi had not identified specific differences between those originals and the copies already before court.
Justice Bukirwa consequently dismissed the application, finding that Nyanzi had failed to establish the relevance and materiality of the documents sought and that the request amounted to a fishing expedition. The court ordered that costs of the application would abide by the outcome of the main election petition-URN. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
