A dramatic court-supervised recount has rewritten the outcome of the Masaka District Woman Member of Parliament race, with National Resistance Movement candidate Justine Nameere now officially declared the winner.
The ruling reverses the earlier announcement that had placed National Unity Platform’s Rose Nalubowa ahead, closing a tense chapter that had kept the district in political suspense.
Nameere turned to the courts to challenge the initial results, arguing that the tallying process had been marred by serious irregularities. Her petition succeeded, paving the way for a meticulous re-examination of ballots that ultimately shifted the balance of the contest. The revised figures gave Nameere 25,502 votes, surpassing Nalubowa’s 23,176.
The recount unfolded under the supervision of Masaka Chief Magistrate Albert Asiimwe, after the court found credible grounds to question the integrity of the first count. Central to the case were discrepancies between official declaration forms, Electoral Commission tallies, and the actual ballot papers recovered from boxes across several polling stations.
As ballot boxes were opened, glaring numerical inconsistencies emerged. In a number of locations, the ballots inside did not correspond with the votes previously recorded on official documents. These discoveries fueled the court’s decision-making, as each anomaly added weight to concerns about how the initial results had been compiled.
At Kimwanyi P.7 polling station, documents indicated Nameere had secured 97 votes and Nalubowa 62, yet only 49 ballots were found in the box — all marked for Nameere. Because the ballot count could not reconcile with the paperwork, the court nullified results from that station entirely.
Elsewhere, inflated and deflated figures came to light. Binyonyi A (NAMBU-Z) showed 339 votes for Nameere on the tally sheet, but just 41 ballots were recovered. At Market Triangle (Open Space), her supposed 200 votes translated into only 21 ballots. Conversely, Block B A polling station revealed the opposite trend: while records showed 39 votes for Nameere, the box contained 188 ballots in her favour.
Nalubowa eventually withdrew from the exercise, objecting to the continuation of the recount after a ballot box with a damaged seal was identified. By then, judicial officers had already inspected 104 boxes — roughly one-third of those involved — and the court opted to proceed in order to complete the verification process.
With 59,499 ballot papers slated for scrutiny overall, the recount fundamentally reshaped the final verdict of the race. Nameere’s court-confirmed victory not only settles the dispute but also highlights the decisive role of legal oversight in safeguarding electoral accountability when the credibility of vote tallies comes into question.
