NUP’s Godfrey Ssaazi thrown out of parliament as court orders fresh poll

What the report says

The High Court in Mpigi has annulled the election of National Unity Platform legislator Godfrey Ssaazi as Gomba East MP and ordered a fresh parliamentary poll. In a ruling delivered by email on Monday, Justice Jamson Karemani found that irregularities at several polling stations had materially affected the January 15, 2026 election outcome.

The case was brought by National Resistance Movement candidate Henry Kirumira Harris Kalule, who challenged Ssaazi’s victory and argued that omitted results and disruptions during voting compromised the integrity of the contest. According to the court record reported by The Observer, Ssaazi had initially been declared winner with 10,907 votes against Kalule’s 9,156. The judge examined both the exclusion of results from four polling stations and the destruction of electoral materials at nine others.

The court concluded that the missing results from four stations would not have changed the final result, but took a different view of the nine disrupted polling stations, where the votes of 4,387 registered voters could not be established. Justice Karemani said the scale of the unresolved vote, compared with the margin between the candidates, meant the election could not stand. He therefore set aside Ssaazi’s victory, declared the seat vacant and directed the Electoral Commission to organise a new election.

The ruling also noted arguments from Ssaazi, the returning officer and the Electoral Commission that the election remained valid and that the disruptions did not alter the outcome. As a broader legal matter, the decision underscores how courts assess whether electoral irregularities are significant enough to overturn a result.