Masaka, Uganda — Masaka Chief Magistrate Albert Asiimwe has declared Justine Nameere of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) the duly elected Woman Member of Parliament for Masaka City following the completion of a court-ordered vote recount.
According to an official court document issued after the exercise at the Electoral Commission offices in Masaka City, Nameere secured 25,502 votes, the highest among the four candidates who contested in the January 15, 2026 parliamentary election. Her closest challenger, Rose Nalubowa of the National Unity Platform (NUP), polled 23,176 votes, while Juliet Nakabuye Kakande of the Democratic Front (DF) received 6,136 votes. Independent candidate Nanyonga Sauya garnered 5,921 votes.
The three-day recount followed an application filed in the Chief Magistrate’s Court of Masaka after the initial declaration of results was challenged on grounds of electoral irregularities. The exercise involved verification of ballots cast across Masaka City and was conducted under continuous court supervision.
In a certificate signed by Chief Magistrate Asiimwe, the court formally returned Nameere as the winner of the Masaka City Woman MP seat, overturning the earlier declaration that had awarded victory to the opposition NUP candidate.
The recount process was marked by several notable incidents involving ballot boxes. Early in the exercise, the court excluded one polling station entirely after its ballot box was found without a security seal, a defect the magistrate ruled could not be cured through recounting. In another incident, results from Kimwanyi P7 polling station were disregarded after the ballot box was found to contain 97 votes cast for Nameere alone, with no ballots recorded for any of the other candidates. The court ruled that such a result could not be reconciled with a competitive multi-candidate election and ordered the station excluded from the final tally.
Despite these exclusions, the magistrate allowed the recount to proceed for the remaining polling stations, finding that the irregularities were isolated rather than systemic and did not justify halting the entire exercise.
Ugandan election jurisprudence has historically taken a strict view where ballot box integrity is compromised. In a landmark 2001 High Court decision from Mbarara, Justice V. F. Musoke-Kibuuka held that a recount cannot properly proceed where ballot boxes are found to be open or unsealed, warning that once security is breached, the results become incapable of reliable verification. This position was later reinforced in Sulaiman Ssembajja v Kigimu Kiwanuka Maurice, where courts declined to order recounts after finding that ballot boxes had not been secured in accordance with the law. Legal observers note that these principles are likely to be revisited should the Masaka outcome be challenged on appeal.
