At long last the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) has cast off its hard outer shell and submitted names of its team in Parliament; FDC President Maj Gen Mugisha Muntu has nominated Kasese Woman Member of Parliament (MP) Winnie Kiiza as the Leader of Opposition, with youthful Kira Municipality legislator Ibrahim Semujju Nganda becoming Chief Whip, while veteran politician, Dokolo Woman MP Cecilia Atim Ogwal, was named a Parliamentary Commissioner.
THEN READ: Kasese’s Kizza emerges frontrunner for Leader of Opposition
The naming of the opposition team comes after an acrimonious debate that threatened to rip the FDC down the middle, with one group led by unrelenting party activist Ingrid Turinawe arguing that the FDC won the 2016 elections and that the party had no business naming an ‘opposition side’ to Parliament.
That however, did not deter party president Muntu from pushing on with his idea of taking the ‘change of leadership’ battle to Parliament, with his first step being the nomination of the opposition representatives in the House.
And in so doing, Gen Muntu has called upon the zeal and determination of Ms Kiiza to lead that charge in Parliament, a decision that will put to test the General’s ‘war instincts’ and discretion in light of the current political challenges facing the opposition in the country today. Politically, the opposition in Uganda is ‘besieged’ and has to look for solutions to exit this quagmire by engaging the ruling party MPs in constructive debate on a number of matters of national interest, without being overwhelmed by the cancer of the ‘tyranny of numbers’.
That notwithstanding however, the opposition representatives in the 10th Parliament have their work cut out for them, given that the 2016 election was the most challenging poll for the opposition in Uganda since the return to multi-partyism about two decades ago.
READ: FDC should come clean on participation in parliamentary activities
For starters, the new opposition team in Parliament now under the stewardship of LoP Kiiza is going to start its work when the opposition flag bearer in the 2016 presidential elections, Dr Kizza Besigye, is incarcerated in Luzira Prison on treason charges.
Their new tenure also comes amidst repeated calls by the opposition and some civil society groups, for changes to some laws especially those related to elections. However, this might prove problematic if the ruling party members come up with a contentious proposal to amend the Constitution to remove the age limit cap of 75 years.
READ: Besigye’s FDC to name parallel ‘government’
Needless to mention however, the charge to lead, maintain and defend the opposition position in Parliament now lies squarely on the shoulders of the lady from Kasese, who has had a thriving political career that even diminished, in its vicious wave, the domineering political figure of the Kasese region, outgoing defence minister and Bukonzo West MP Dr Crispus Kiyonga.
Indeed, Ms Kiiza is not mellow: the opposition Chief Whip in the 9th Parliament, in 2011 she and then LoP Philip Wafula Oguttu mobilised their colleagues to walk out of the State of the Nation address, with claims that President Yoweri Museveni and his government were not doing enough to fight corruption.
‘That one showed you the consensus we have as opposition. The issue over which we walked out was corruption. The opposition, through the Public Accounts Committee came up with a report pinpointing various leaders, who are now key leadership positions in the NRM government, as corrupt. When we put it to the head of state, he said those cadres are clean and we can’t do anything about them. So, the President says he is ready to fight corruption, and yet he is glorifying the corrupt. We said we’re not going to accept to be lied to in broad daylight and just keep quiet,’ Ms Kiiza told local media then.
Also, in that position Ms Kiiza ‘whipped’ her husband Yokasi Bihande Bwambale, then MP for Bukonzo East constituency, with arguments that there was nothing wrong in husband and wife being in Parliament.
But her steady demeanour could not  deter her husband from dipping his fingers in the Constituency Development Fund (CDF).
But for now, as the public waits the naming of more opposition MPs from the Democratic Party (DP) and the Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC), Hon Winnie Kiiza should start sharpening her skills acquired over her 20-year political career, in an effort to strengthen the future of parliamentary democracy in Uganda.
