Several candidates in the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) primaries in Sembabule District are calling for an independent audit of the election results, raising concerns over what they describe as irregularities and inconsistencies in the tallying process.
Deborah Arayo, the NRM District Returning Officer, announced the party’s official flagbearers for the District Chairperson and LCV Councillor positions following Thursday’s internal elections. According to the declared results, incumbent District Chairperson Patrick Nkalubo secured a second term as the party’s flagbearer with 59,661 votes.
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He was followed by Dr Elli Muhumuza with 15,357 votes, James Kabuganda with 14,045, Richard Naturinda with 1,501, and Quraish Mutesti, who received 917 votes.
However, the declaration of results has been met with sharp criticism from several candidates, who argue the figures are questionable and may have been manipulated. Dr Muhumuza questioned discrepancies between the number of votes cast and the figures recorded in party registers, particularly pointing to polling stations where votes for the LCV Chairperson were significantly higher than those for councillors, despite the elections being held simultaneously.
He alleged that local election officials may have tampered with the figures and called for a formal audit to ensure transparency and credibility.
Fellow candidate Richard Naturinda echoed these concerns, urging NRM’s Electoral Commission to withhold the results and conduct a full review. He claimed some result forms, particularly from Lwemiyaga and Ntuusi sub-counties, were incomplete, missing vote tallies for some candidates. He alleged that these forms may have been pre-filled in collusion with certain candidates.
“I don’t believe these results reflect the will of the people. Some forms were filled without proper procedure, and names of candidates were omitted. This cannot stand unchallenged,” Naturinda said.
In response to the complaints, Ambassador James Kinone, the NRM Electoral Commissioner for the Buganda region, instructed officials to suspend the declaration of councillor results from Lwemiyaga sub-county, citing irregularities that require further scrutiny.
He noted that preliminary reviews of the results forms indicated that some had been filled out in similar handwriting—raising further suspicion of tampering.
Kinone warned that any officials found to have participated in electoral malpractice would face disciplinary action from the party.
Meanwhile, Nkalubo, the declared winner, denied any wrongdoing and dismissed the claims as unfounded. He attributed the vote discrepancies to a lack of proper agent deployment by his opponents and differences in mobilisation efforts between candidates.
The NRM Electoral Commission has not yet announced when or if an audit will take place.
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