The High Court has dismissed an election petition filed by the National Unity Platform (NUP) Deputy Spokesperson Alex Waiswa Mufumbiro challenging the election of the Nationa Resistance Movement (NRM) candidate Fredrick Ruhidi as a member of Parliament for Nakawa Division East Constituency. In his concluding remarks, Justice Allan Nshimye ruled that the evidence presented by Mufumbiro did not justify setting aside Ruhindi’s election.

The Judge ruled:
“The evidence on record adduced by the petitioner does not support the prayer to set aside the election of the first respondent as the duly elected Member of Parliament for Nakawa Division East Constituency.”
The court consequently dismissed Election Petition No. 12 of 2026, affirming Ruhindi as the duly elected MP for the constituency.

The judge further ordered that each party bears its own costs. Mufumbiro's petition raised several allegations of electoral irregularities, including the exclusion of results from 22 polling stations, discrepancies in voter records, inflated vote tallies and alleged tampering with declaration of results forms. 
However, in examining the evidence, the court found that although results from 22 polling stations had not been included in the final tally, the omission did not substantially affect the outcome of the election.  The judge also questioned the evidential basis of several claims, particularly the use of uncertified photocopies of declaration of results forms.
Relying on Section 68 of the Evidence Act and the Supreme Court decision in Karuhanga v Electoral Commission, Justice Nshimye held that uncertified copies of public documents could not be relied upon as authentic evidence in the circumstances presented.  The court further found that Mufumbiro had failed to establish that he obtained more votes than Ruhindi.
On allegations of unusually high voter turnout at some polling stations, the judge questioned the accuracy of evidence presented by one of the petitioner's witnesses, Wilson Kato Kenneth.  Kato had initially claimed that turnout at Staff Nursery Primary School was 99.99 per cent but admitted during cross-examination that the actual figure was 66.78 per cent.
The court also noted that several polling agents representing Mufumbiro had signed the disputed declaration of results forms, yet only two of those agents were called to testify about the alleged irregularities.  Examining individual results forms, Justice Nshimye found no evidence of alterations affecting the recorded votes at Kasasiro OMUZ polling station, where the candidates' combined votes totalled 189, matching the figure entered by the presiding officer.
The judge also found that discrepancies in the gender breakdown of voters on some declaration forms were insufficient to invalidate the election where the votes obtained by individual candidates and the total valid votes had been properly recorded.  The ruling brings to a close Mufumbiro's legal challenge to Ruhindi's election, with the court finding that the alleged irregularities, individually and collectively, had not been established as grounds for overturning the results.