Kabale, Uganda | URN | Charlotte Murungi Kemigisha, a youth from Northern division in Kabale Municipality has sued National Resistance Movement (NRM) party Electoral Commission for blocking her from contesting for a position on the party’s National Youth Council.
Kemigisha was vying for the position of Finance Secretary in the NRM National Youth Council. But her candidature was invalidated when party’s district registrar Maurice Mugenga Keitaba blocked all the youth leaders from Kabale municipality from participating in voting exercise on Tuesday.
Keitaba subsequently announced Ezra Aryanyijuka unopposed for the post. She accuses Keitaba of favoring Aryanyijuka, a contender who also holds a similar position in the National Youth Council as an independent member.
She says that his declaration, before denouncing his independency and returning to NRM, contravenes the party constitution. Now Kemigisha has dragged the party together with Keitaba and Aryanyijuka to court seeking to nullify the outcome of the process.
The court has since issues summons to the NRM party Electoral Commission, and the other two defendants to file a Defence in less than 15 days. But Keitaba says he fully followed party’s electoral commission guidelines which excludes Municipality leaders from voting. He said that the guidelines were indicating that the elections were meant for sub county leagues, not municipalities.
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Keitaba also defends Aryanyijuka’s candidature on ground that he is the party’s youth secretary for finance in charge of Kamuganguzi sub county. He adds that Kemigisha could not contest because she already serves as the party’s Secretary-General of National Youth League for Kabale municipality.
Aryanyijuka says that Kemigisha’s move aims at tarnishing his political career.
