By Aggrey Baba
The National Resistance Movement (NRM) has suffered another setback in its attempt to overturn the election of NUP’s George Musisi as MP for Kira Municipality after the High Court in Wakiso dismissed an application by former candidate Daniel Kananura, seeking to amend his election petition against the NUP candidate.
Justice George Okello ruled on Tuesday that the law does not provide for the amendment of parliamentary election petitions and that the High Court has no power to extend the statutory period within which such petitions must be filed or amended, a decision which effectively blocks Kananura’s attempt to introduce the proposed amendments into his challenge against Musisi’s victory.
Kananura initially filed his petition on March 31, 2026, before filing an amended version on April 7.
Musisi and the Electoral Commission (EC) opposed the move, arguing that the amended petition had been filed outside the statutory period and introduced new grounds that had not been contained in the original petition, with their lawyers asking court to strike out the amended petition.
The EC went further, arguing that if the amended petition was struck out, there would effectively be no petition left for court to determine.
Justice Okello ultimately sided with the respondents on the legal question concerning amendment of parliamentary election petitions.
The judge held that the special statutory regime governing election petitions could not be supplemented by ordinary civil procedure rules to create a right to amend a parliamentary election petition where the electoral law itself does not provide for such a procedure.
“The law remains strict and does not provide for amendment of parliamentary election petition, whether with leave or without leave,” Justice Okello stated in his Tuesday afternoon ruling.
The judge further held that the High Court lacked power under the Parliamentary Elections Act to extend the statutory period for filing or amending the petition.
The development is important because Kananura’s original challenge had raised serious allegations concerning the conduct of the Kira Municipality election, including alleged ballot stuffing and voter bribery, allegations which were disputed by the respondents and, crucially, were not findings of the court.
The ruling was instead concerned with whether Kananura could legally amend his election petition outside the statutory framework.
That distinction means the court’s decision should not be reported as a judicial finding that the alleged electoral malpractice did not occur. Rather, the court determined that the amended petition could not proceed because the law did not permit the proposed amendment.
George Musisi, the NUP candidate, won the Kira Municipality parliamentary seat in the January 2026 election with 21,561 votes, defeating former long-serving MP Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, who polled 14,685 votes, while NRM’s Kananura came 3rd with 6,927 votes. Kananura subsequently went to court challenging Musisi’s victory. The case had been awaiting determination of the preliminary applications before the substantive election petition could proceed.
On September 23, Justice Okello consolidated applications filed separately by Musisi’s lawyers and the Electoral Commission and set September 29 for his ruling, and now the ruling has dealt a major blow to Kananura’s attempt to reshape his petition.
Justice Okello also ordered Kananura to meet the costs of the application. However, rather than ordering him to pay the entire legal costs incurred by the respondents, the court directed him to pay half of the costs incurred by George Musisi and EC. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
