By Presidential aspirant and leader of the National Economic Empowerment Dialogue (NEED) party, Joseph Kabuleta, has petitioned the Electoral Commission (EC), accusing it of presiding over what he described as a fraudulent and predetermined nomination process for the 2026 elections.
According to Kabuleta, while more than 200 individuals initially expressed interest in running for president, only 38 returned nomination forms, and of these, just 8 were successfully nominated. He claims the disqualification of 30 aspirants was riddled with irregularities.
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“There are people on that ballot whom I know did not present a single signature,” Kabuleta told journalists on Friday. “Others were still calling around looking for signatures when, suddenly, they were cleared with certificates. This was predetermined from the start.”
The former presidential candidate argued that the rejection of his own supporters’ signatures was not based on genuine verification. “In 16 districts, I was told that all 150 signatures I submitted had already endorsed another candidate. That is absolutely impossible. It means they didn’t even look at my signatures they simply gave me zeros across the board,” he said.
Kabuleta likened the process to a student being failed without their exam script being marked. “You sit for an exam, read hard, submit your script, but the lecturer throws it in the dustbin and gives you zero. That’s exactly what happened,” he remarked.
He further questioned the credibility of the verification exercise, revealing that even the EC’s head of election management was reportedly barred from accessing the room where signatures were being scrutinized. “If the head of election management was not allowed in, then who was actually doing the verification?” Kabuleta asked.
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The NEED leader warned that the flaws in the nomination stage cast serious doubt on the fairness of the entire electoral process. “If the very foundation of the process is fraudulent, how do we expect the elections and tallying of votes to be any different?” he said.
The EC has not yet publicly responded to Kabuleta’s petition.
Kabuleta, who also contested in the 2021 elections, now joins other disqualified aspirants in challenging the transparency of the EC ahead of campaigns scheduled to officially begin on September 29, 2025.
