Nakawa Division East constituency was on Saturday taken over by National Resistance Movement (NRM) after Kampala District Electoral Commission returning officer, Rashid Hashakya, declared Fred Ruhindi, winner with 18,555 votes. Ruhindi defeated his closest challenger Waiswa Mufumbiro, the National Unity Platform (NUP) candidate who scored 15,186 votes. This means Ruhindi defeated Waiswa with a margin of 3,369 votes.
Ruhindi, has just bounced back as Nakawa legislator. He was its MP before it was split in into two from 2006 and 2016 serving two terms. Towards the 2021 elections, Nakawa Division was split into Nakawa Division East and Nakawa Division West. Even before it was split, the constituency was taken over by Michael Kabaziguruka on FDC ticket in 2016.
Kabaziguruka stood again for Nakawa East on FDC ticket in 2021but lost it to still an opposition candidate Ronald Balimwezo who stood on NUP ticket in 2021. This time, Balimwezo opted to contest for Kampala Lord Mayor, hence NUP fronted Waiswa. However, the results show more candidates fronted by the opposition political parties scored a significant number of votes which could have probably helped Waiswa to win the constituency in keep in the hands of the Opposition where it has been in the last 10 years.
For instance, Winfred Nakandi who stood on the Democratic Front ticket garnered 3,020 votes. Nakandi secured the DF ticket after realising she was not getting the Kampala Woman MP ticket from NUP since she the favorites were incumbent Shamim Malende and Zahara Luyirika who has now been elected MP Makindye West.
Nakandi withdrew her expression of interests and opted to contest for Nakawa East and quickly secured the DF ticket. Assuming that the 3030 voters who voted against NRM by giving their votes to Nakandi had voted for Waiswa, Ruhindi would have remained in the lead with a paltry of 349 votes.
Then Waiswa would need only 500 votes out of the 2345 votes garnered by PFF candidate Michael Kabaziguruka and would have retained the constituency in opposition hands. Also, the more than 1200 votes earned by DFC’s Moses Okware Mugisha could have been more than enough to top on Nakandi’s votes to propel Waiswa to victory.
Assuming that the voters who voted for Nakandi were majorly women who wanted a female legislator and probably could not vote for a man, the 2345 votes PFF’s Kabaziguruka got and the 1210 votes FDC’s Okware got could still have posted Waiswa above Ruhindi and he would have kept the constituency in the hands of opposition.
Kabaziguruka and Okware votes without those of Nakandi could have pushed Waiswa to 18731 votes and would still defeat Ruhindi with his 18555 votes. With these votes garnered by candidates fronted by opposition political parties, one would be right to say the opposition handed over Nakawa East to NRM by failing to front or back their strongest candidate in the race.
Nevertheless, NUP Spokesperson, who is also Leader of Opposition in Parliament, Joel Ssenyonyi, has dismissed Ruhindi victory insisting that they were rigged. Ssenyonyi cites an example of a declaration form where a Declaration Form showed he had scored 380 votes yet below it showed the total number of voter turnout at the polling station 164.
“Several DR forms had irregularities and we agreed that they be verified. However, the returning officer chose to put them aside instead of verifying who the true winner at such polling stations was. That disfranchised our candidate and we cannot regard such elections free and fair,” Ssenyonyi said.
Ruhindi, who was declared winner yesterday, insists that he did enormous door to door campaigns which helped voters appreciate his message. “Voters realised that they have been missing out on my services. They reflected on what I did when I was there area MP and compared with my last 10 years absence. They realized I am the best candidate,” Ruhindi said.