Kasibante applies to withdraw presidential election petition over prohibitive litigation costs

Robert Kasibante of the National Peasants’ Party, a former presidential candidate, seeks to overturn President Museveni’s victory, citing alleged widespread irregularities, violence and the misuse of state resources

KAMPALA, Uganda — Former presidential candidate Robert Kasibante has applied to the Supreme Court to withdraw his petition challenging the 2026 election results, citing prohibitive legal costs and technical complexities.

Kasibante, who ran on the National Peasants Party ticket and finished sixth, filed the application to discontinue his case against President-elect Yoweri Museveni, the Electoral Commission and the attorney general.

The move includes withdrawing a request for a nationwide audit of election materials, including biometric data and electronic servers. In court filings, Kasibante said the financial burden of analyzing such vast amounts of data is beyond his means.

The discovery process would require hiring independent forensic experts, which Kasibante described as financially impractical. He requested that the court order each party to pay its own legal fees rather than penalizing him with the respondents’ costs.

The withdrawal comes as the court was preparing to rule on Kasibante’s request for access to the data used to declare Museveni the winner of the Jan. 15 election.

In his original petition, Kasibante alleged the election was conducted in total noncompliance with the law. He accused Museveni of bribery and corruption and claimed voting occurred at roughly 15,000 polling stations that were not officially gazetted.

Kasibante had initially asked the court to nullify the results and order a new election