By Aggrey Baba
Kawempe Division Mayor Emmanuel Sserunjogi has emerged from a legal battle with his political rival Faruk Bulime (Maya) of NRM after the High Court in Kampala threw out the latter’s election petition without a full trial of the allegations he had raised against the Robert Kyagulanyi’s man.
But even as the court awarded costs against the petitioner, Sserunjogi struck a surprisingly conciliatory tone, saying he felt sorry for Bulime, who, like him, is a son of Kawempe.
The development came on Tuesday, October 13, 2026, when Justice Flavia Nabakooza ruled that Bulime’s amended petition was irregular, incompetent and improperly before court, while his original petition failed to disclose a viable cause of action.
The ruling followed preliminary objections raised by Sserunjogi and the Electoral Commission (EC), whose lawyers argued that the petition was legally defective and did not sufficiently identify the alleged electoral wrongdoing.
And as if the court’s decision was not enough, Sserunjogi’s lawyer, Jonathan Elotu, turned the spotlight on Bulime’s command of English, questioning whether the petitioner understood the language in which his court documents had been prepared.
“The man claimed that he speaks English properly. He wrote in his petition, that he speaks English. We read through his documents, we found the man does not understand English,” Elotu told journalists after the ruling.
The lawyer also questioned whether the person who translated the petition had adequately demonstrated that its contents were explained to Bulime in accordance with the applicable legal requirements.
Bulime had gone to court seeking to challenge Sserunjogi’s election as Kawempe Division mayor, raising complaints about the nomination process, including allegations concerning the required lists of 20 registered voters from specified electoral areas and the commissioning of nomination documents.
However, rather than proceeding to determine whether those allegations were true, Justice Nabakooza dealt with the legal competence of the petition itself.
At the centre of the dispute was an amendment Bulime’s legal team said was intended to restore a missing page in the original petition, which had allegedly been omitted during scanning and uploading onto the court’s electronic filing system.
The original petition was filed on May 29, 2026, the final day of the statutory 14-day period following publication of the election results in the Uganda Gazette. The document reportedly contained pages one, three and four, with page two missing.
Bulime subsequently filed an amended petition on June 14, after the Electoral Commission had already filed its response to the original document.
His lawyers argued that the missing material had also been included in the supporting affidavit and that the respondents had therefore understood the case they were expected to answer.
Justice Nabakooza, however, found that the amended petition went beyond restoring the missing page, introducing additional factual allegations, including claims about voter lists and complaints allegedly presented to the Electoral Commission before the election.
The judge reasoned that the additions introduced fresh grounds into the dispute and could prejudice respondents who had already filed their answers.
She consequently held that the NRM candidate should have sought and obtained leave of court before amending the petition, given the strict procedural requirements governing election disputes.
The judge also rejected the argument that Article 126(2)(e) of the Constitution, which requires courts to administer substantive justice without undue regard to technicalities, could be relied upon to cure non-compliance with mandatory legal requirements.
Having found the amended petition incompetent, Justice Nabakooza turned to the original pleadings and concluded that they did not contain sufficient material facts to establish a viable cause of action.
According to the ruling, the original petition comprised three pages containing introductory information, prayers for relief, a certificate of translation, the petitioner’s signature and details of the legal representatives, but lacked sufficient particulars establishing the alleged wrongdoing.
The court therefore struck out both petitions and awarded costs to Sserunjogi and the EC.
Elotu subsequently argued that Bulime’s allegations about nomination requirements had not been properly particularized, insisting that the petitioner failed to identify the specific electoral areas from which Sserunjogi was allegedly required to produce the 20 registered voters.
“The man did not state specifically what he was coming to court to do. He said Maya [Sserunjogi] did not bring 20 registered voters from each of the polling stations. Then we asked him which polling stations he was supposed to bring the 20 registered voters from,” the lawyer said.
He argued that the outcome should remind election petitioners that courts require clearly stated grounds and strict compliance with the applicable procedures.
Sserunjogi, meanwhile, indicated that he would consult his lawyers on the way forward, including the question of costs and any further legal steps available to him. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
