The high court in Soroti has given the Former Soroti City East MP Moses Okia Attan and his legal team up to tomorrow 11:30AM to file additional submissions into the petition they have filed against Herbert Edmund Ariko.
The decision stemmed after Jude Byamukama of JB and Co advocates asked the court to grant them two days in order to file more submissions noting that some of their witnesses had been harassed and forced to sign affidavits by their opponents.
He said that they had submitted 80 affidavits in support of the election petition but most of them have been harassed.
In his ruling Justice Ssekana gave the petitioner and his legal team up to tomorrow 11:30AM to file the additional submissions while adding that other submissions can be done during cross examination
The case will come for mention tomorrow and setting a date hearing.
Lawyer Patrick Wetaka of Electoral Commission during an interview on the other hand disagreed with Attan’s team saying election petition is not about the volumes of the affidavits but rather the evidence in the matter.
The former Forum for Democratic Change – FDC Moses Attan Okia, through his lawyer in an August 26 petition indicated that there were glaring malpractices, militarization of the by-election, and detention of his party agents.
This is the first time Okia, who has been running in the Soroti parliamentary race since 2011 is running to court.
Okia challenged NRM’s Mike Mukula in the 2011 elections and lost. In 2016, he lost to Ariko, who was then a member of FDC. He however didn’t challenge the poll results in court.
Ms Christine Eyuu, the returning officer for Soroti City, who is also a respondent in the petition, on July 28, declared Mr Herbert Edmund Ariko of National Resistance Movement party as MP-elect for Soroti East Division having garnered 9,407 votes against Mr Attan’s 8,771. Mr Pascal Amuriat of Uganda People’s Congress came a distant third with 115 votes.