The ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) candidate, Mr Herbert Edmund Ariko has been declared as the duly elected Member of Parliament for Soroti East Division following Thursday’s hotly contested by-election.

Ariko got 9,407 votes while his closest contender, Moses Attan of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) got 8,771 votes.

Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) candidate Pascal Amuriat garnered 115 votes in the Thursday polls that were characterized by high presence of the armed forces and massive arrests of FDC members, including the party president Patrick Amuriat.

Soroti East returning officer, Ms Christine Eyu said the total number of valid votes cast for candidates were 18,293 with 107 spoilt ballot papers.