MP defends her victory in court

Musoma. Bunda Urban MP (Chadema) Esther Bulaya spent a few hours in the witness stand at the High Court, Mwanza Division yesterday to defend her victory in last year’s General Election

But Ms Bulaya, who is the first respondent in the election petition filed to challenge her victory, failed to clarify why the number of registered voters from her affidavit differed from the one in Form No 24b, which was presented to the court as evidence by the second respondent.

According to Form No 24b, which was presented to the court by the Bunda Urban returning officer, the number of voters registered at Bunda Urban Constituency was 69,460 while in her affidavit, Ms Bulaya said the total number of voters registered in the constituency was 69,369.

Due to that contradiction, the petitioner’s advocate, Ms Hajra Mwingula, asked Ms Bulaya during cross examination, to state which number the court should rely on.

Ms Bulaya said the tallying of votes that showed she was the winner, was done openly in the presence of other candidates.

She said the ruling party candidate, Mr Stephen Wasira, was represented by his agent, who is the third petitioner in the case, Mr Janes Ezekiel.

According to her, on October 26, 2015, after the tallying of votes, the returning officer mistakenly announced the total number of registered voters to be 164,794 instead of 69,369.

She said both representatives and candidates, who were there during the exercise, notified the officer on the error and she immediately corrected the figures.

Ms Bulaya told the court presided by Judge Noel Chocha that the number of voters announced earlier by the retuning officer was the total number of voters who had registered in the whole district (Bunda), which has three constituencies.

“Instead of announcing the total number of voters registered in Bunda Urban Constituency, she mistakenly announced the total number of voters for the whole district which, as you know, has three constituencies namely Bunda urban, Bunda and Mwibara,” she said.

She told the court that despite that confusion, the situation did not affect at all the parliamentary results as other figures were in accordance with Form No 21b.

She insisted that she was not aware of allegations of the increase of nine extra polling stations as she was aware there were 190 polling stations.

Four Bunda Urban voters have filed an Election Petition Number 1 of 2015 at the High Court, Mwanza Division asking it to nullify the Bunda Urban election results.

The voters claim in the petition that the election was not free and fair.

The respondents at the petition include Bunda Urban Member of Parliament Ms Ester Bulaya, the then Bunda Urban Constituency returning officer, Ms Lucy Msofe and the Attorney general.