The ruling NRM party has defended the decision to declare State Minister for Labour, Mwesigwa Rukutana as the winner of the Rushenyi County party primaries.
Dr.Tanga Odoi on Wednesday announced Rukutana as the winner of the election after re-tallying of the votes contrary to an earlier announcement in which Ntungamo Woman Member of Parliament, Naome Kabasharira had been declared winner of the September,4 polls.
However, the resultant re-tallying and announcement saw Rukutana beat his rival by 20votes but this has not augured well with Kabasharira.
Addressing journalists on Sunday, NRM’s director in charge of legal affairs, Oscar Kihika said following complaints by Rukutana’s agents, there was an investigation done on the ground to ascertain facts relating to Kabasharira’s election.
Kihika insisted that the investigation recommended for re-tallying of votes.
“Both parties were asked to bring their declaration of result forms for comparison with what was with the electoral commission. All results were matching apart from one contentious village where Kabasharira was saying there was no election whereas Rukutana insisted elections happened and had DR forms,” Kihika told journalists.
The director in charge of legal affairs in NRM said that following the impasse, Dr.Tanga Odoi wrote a report to President Museveni who is also the national parry chairperson in regards the same and he sent a team to the ground to investigate.
On Wednesday, the NRM electoral commission chairperson said he had visited the contentious Nyakahita village for a fact finding mission before declaring the final results.
“After tallying here, I visited Nyakahita village and interacted with 42 ladies, 16 men and eight drunkards who were still in their sense Even a drunkard can tell you what can tally or not. After interacting with them, I came back with an analysis,”Tanga said.
Oscar Kihika told journalists on Sunday that the investigation found out that there voting had taken place at the contentious village.
“When they re-tallied the results from the exercise, it was found that Rukutana had won but there was thorough examination of all documents relating to the election,” Kihika said.
The NRM Secretary General, Justine Kasule Lumumba noted that whoever is aggrieved with the announced results has a right to challenge the same.
“It is her(Kabasharira) right to put in a petition challenging the results. She will go through the same process of hearing the petition,” Lumumba said.
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