Jinja High Court has dismissed with costs an election petition filed by Alliance for National Transformation candidate Paul Mwiru challenging the victory of NRM’s Igeme Nathan Nabeta.

Mwiru through his lawyer Edward Kyeyago ran to court to overturn Nabeta’s victory in the January polls.

Nabeta won the Jinja South East Member of Parliament seat after obtaining 5,817 votes against Mwiru’s 5,580 votes.

In his petition, Mwiru claimed that the polls were marred with vote-rigging. He also claimed that Nabeta who doubles as the Jinja city NRM party chairperson connived with security operatives and Electoral Commission officials to frustrate his polling agents on election day.

However, yesterday High Court Judge Issa Sserunkuma dismissed the petition with costs on grounds of lack of evidence from the main petitioner, Mwiru.

Speaking shortly after the ruling, Mwiru stated that part of his crucial evidence was not considered by the same court, which weakened the merits of the petition.

Mwiru and Nabeta have raced for the same seat in the 2011 and 2016 elections. Mwiru managed to oust Nabeta through a court petition before he went on to win two successful by-elections.