The Kassanda South Election Dispute: What Happened

What the report says

Watchdog Uganda reports that the parliamentary election dispute in Kassanda South, in Uganda’s Mubende region, has moved from the January 2026 vote into the High Court. The original contest was closely fought: Hajji Abdul Bisaso ran as the National Resistance Movement candidate, Eria Mubiru stood as an independent after losing the NRM primaries, and Frank Kabuye also contested for the National Unity Platform. The Electoral Commission later declared Bisaso the winner with 11,765 votes, ahead of Mubiru on 11,050 and Kabuye on 9,231, leaving a narrow margin of 715 votes.

According to the article, Mubiru filed an election petition in Mubende High Court on March 31, alleging problems at several polling stations, including falsified results, ballot stuffing, multiple voting, bribery and intimidation. Bisaso’s camp rejected those claims and pointed to his earlier primary win, which a party tribunal had upheld. The court initially declined an early request for a recount, then later ordered a limited sample recount of 29 polling stations to test whether official results matched the ballots.

The recount was due to begin on October 16 but was halted after Bisaso’s lawyers raised objections about missing seal records and how ballot boxes had been stored since polling day. The judge sent the boxes back to Electoral Commission storage and asked both sides to file final submissions. The article says the case will now be decided on the evidence already before the court. The dispute matters because it highlights how close election margins, fraud allegations and chain-of-custody questions can shape confidence in Uganda’s electoral process.