The Electoral Commission has disowned the nomination of Cissy Bayiga Oeschger as a candidate for the Nyendo-Mukungwe division parliamentary seat in Masaka city.
Bayiga has been campaigning for the last two weeks, seeking support ahead of the January next year’s election, indicating that she was duly nominated by the Electoral Commission, almost a month later.
According to her, the commission cleared her for late nomination after missing the initial schedule of October, when she was involved in a motor accident on the last day of the nomination exercise.
She indicates that she had booked to be nominated on October 23rd and was involved in an accidents en-route to the nomination center, saying that upon appealing to the Electoral Commission, she was eventually nominated on November 20th.
Accordingly, Bayiga printed and hung up her campaign posters as an independent candidate using a symbol of a ball, and had been conducting mini rallies in the different wards of Nyendo-Mukungwe division.
However, her campaign activities have suffered an abrupt halt after the Electoral Commission declared her alleged nomination fictitious.
In a letter by the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Justice Simon Mugyenyi Byabakama dismisses claims of Bayiga’s nominations, indicating that she never adduced justifiable reasons for late nomination.
The Commission observes that, having missed nomination due to a motor accident that Bayiga was allegedly involved in on the last day of the exercise, she only remembered to formally seek nomination out of time on October 29th, which was inordinately late.
Justice Byabakama also indicates that at the hearing of the request, Bayiga did not furnish the commission with a police report regarding the said accident, a medical report, or any other evidence to corroborate her story.
He also notes that under the law, the candidate could have been nominated in absentia, provided her proposer and seconder were present with the relevant nomination papers.
“In the view of the foregoing, the commission resolved that your request to be nominated out of time had no merit,” the letter reads in part.
Hussein Nadduli, the Masaka City Electoral Commission Returning Officer, confirmed receiving the letter, wondering why Bayiga had started campaigning without a nomination certificate.
However, Cissy Bayiga has slammed the Electoral Commission Chairperson for what she describes as a ridiculous letter intended to frustrate the parliamentary bid.
She says she has already instructed her lawyers to proceed and challenge the decision of the Electoral Commission Chairperson in the courts of law, arguing that she was not allowed the opportunity to present evidence during the hearing of the request.
Apparently, the race for the Nyendo-Mukungwe Member of Parliament seat remains with three candidates, who include the incumbent and Democratic Front-DF’s Mathias Mpuuga Nsambaa, Rachael Nakitende of the National Resistance Movement (NRM), and Gyavira Lubowa Ssebina on the National Unity Platform (NUP)
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