Kabale Municipality Drama Ends as Tribunal Tosses Out Kassim’s ‘Comedy Show’ Petition

The National Resistance Movement (NRM) Elections Tribunal has brought an end to weeks of political theatre in Kabale Municipality by upholding Hon. Andrew Aja Baryayanga’s emphatic victory and tossing out a petition from his rival, Sheikh Kamugisha Kassim, that collapsed under its own weight.

The July 17th, 2025, NRM primaries were never close. Baryayanga swept 10,245 votes, more than double Kassim’s 4,132, in what observers described as a landslide. Yet, rather than concede, Kassim launched a barrage of allegations ranging from voter bribery and ghost polling stations to underage voting and result-tampering.

In a petition that seemed more rumor than reality, Kassim, through lawyer Mugisha Nuwagaba Buhiire, claimed registers were ignored in polling stations such as Kirwa, Kyetobekire, Rutomakihimbi, Katojjo, Kigezi High School, and Kigezi High School Primary School. He further accused Baryayanga of splashing UGX 300,000 in cash and donating choir uniforms worth UGX 1.3 million at a church function days before polling, a claim that fizzled fast.

Baryayanga’s lawyer, Jason Nyeru Kiggundu, called the accusations “political fiction,” stressing that the primaries were run in line with NRM rules and that any minor irregularities were too insignificant to dent the overwhelming margin.

The Tribunal agreed and dismantled Kassim’s case piece by piece. His evidence file was thin to the point of transparency: no dated photographs, no credible voter register complaints, no affidavits from election officials. The bribery claims, once touted as his smoking gun, were found to have no proven influence on the electorate.

The Tribunal finds that the overall conduct of the election complied with the NRM Election Regulations in a manner that rendered the process fundamentally fair, the ruling declared.

With that, the Tribunal confirmed Baryayanga as the rightful flagbearer and swept Kassim’s petition into the dustbin of political miscalculations.

In Kabale’s political circles, the verdict is being read as more than just a win for Baryayanga, it’s a warning to sore losers who mistake the courtroom for a comedy stage.