By Aggrey Baba
Kampala Central Division Mayor Salim Saad Uhuru’s election challenger, Moses Katabu, has suffered a big loss after the High Court in found that the petition challenging Uhuru’s victory was filed outside the mandatory 14-day statutory period.
Justice Flavia Nabakooza, who is handling the election dispute, made the finding on Tuesday after examining the court record and submissions by the parties in an application concerning additional affidavits filed in support of the petition.
The judge found that the election results had been published in the Uganda Gazette on May 15, 2026, meaning the 14-day period for challenging them expired on May 29.
However, Election Petition No. 17 of 2026 was filed on May 30 at 12:21pm, one day after the deadline.
Justice Nabakooza held that the petition was time-barred and incompetent before court, making it unnecessary to determine the substantive issues raised in the application concerning the disputed affidavits.
The application had sought to challenge further affidavits filed in support of the election petition on August 24, August 29 and September 3, 2026.
NUP’s Katabu opposed the application, arguing that it did not disclose sufficient grounds for the orders sought and amounted to an abuse of court process. He maintained that the additional affidavits had been clearly identified as evidence in support of the petition.
But the judge first turned to the question of whether the petition itself had been filed within the time prescribed by law, explaining that the court had to resolve its competence before proceeding to other matters.
Section 154(4) of the Local Government Act requires an election petition to be filed within 14 days after the Electoral Commission publishes the election results in the Gazette, while Section 153 also provides for service of the petition within seven days after filing.
In reaching her decision, Justice Nabakooza relied on previous court decisions emphasizing that the statutory deadline for local government election petitions is mandatory.
She cited a decision in Bukira versus Zomo and Another, in which an election petition filed one day outside the prescribed period was held to be time-barred.
The judge consequently found the application arising from the petition incompetent and dismissed it without determining the arguments over the additional affidavits.
She made no order as to costs, explaining that the issue of compliance with the statutory filing period had been raised by the court on its own motion rather than by either party.
Katabu, the National Unity Platform candidate, had challenged Uhuru’s victory in the Kampala Central Division mayoral election, with the case coming before the High Court’s Civil Division. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
