In a meeting on Sunday evening in Moroto, National Resistance Movement (NRM) party delegates asserted the need to have the incumbents in CEC vying for re-elections, present accountability to them for a period spanning over 17 years for some.
Angry at the wasteful expenditure by some of the members that have been flying in government choppers which they said is expensive yet it doesn’t reflect on what they are being given as foot soldiers for the party. Some went as far as vowing to have all incumbents ousted and the new entrants given a chance.
This comes in the wake of NRM party leadership elections scheduled for August 19, 2020. In the past, all delegates were summoned to Namboole for a joint conference but with the entry of #Covid-19, the candidates have been tasked by unavoidable circumstances to traverse the country in a wild goose chase for votes. Some hostility has been noticed as many had never met these candidates and feel that there is an opportunistic tendency in all of them as they never would have come to the grassroots had it not been for the search for votes. They also decried the estrangement of these leaders from them during non electoral periods only to show up with large sums of money to persuade the delegates for votes, a thing they felt is insulting and diluting the loyalty to the party.
The current incumbents are Speaker. Rebecca Kadaga who is being challenged by Junior lands Minister Persis Namuganza for 2nd Vice National Chairperson (Female) Sam Engola who is National Vice chairperson for Northern Uganda is being challenged by the Deputy Speaker. Jacob Oulanyah and the most escalated battle is for the National Vice Chairperson for Eastern Uganda between the incumbent Capt. Mike Mukula and Sanjay Tanna who have traded accusations of monetization of campaigns and racism being among the accusations being traded between the two party bigwigs. This is a situation that has seen an alliance being formed by the incumbents in a bid to consolidate on each other’s strengths in their respective regions.
This however hasn’t come with its own challenges as a meeting held in Soroti convened by Kadaga almost caused a collapse of her bid after her departure. Sources that attended the meeting intimated that there was displeasure expressed by members over the transport refund availed to them as it couldn’t even take them back home as some of the members said they would have to sell a chicken or 2 to pay up the transport costs incurred, it is said some actually tore the bank notes handed to them. Another reason for displeasure was the presence of Capt. Mukula who has been accused by Teso delegates for being detached from them and only returns to look for votes.
All this summed up, seems to suggest that the coalition between Kadaga, Engola and Mukula may as well be their Waterloo this time around as all have made enemies that they have equally distributed amongst themselves. There has been no mention of any kind of coalition between Oulanyah, Sanjay and Namuganza, a thing that if it were to happen, would make this race more interesting.
All CEC candidates will be vetted yesterday August 11, 2020 via a virtual meeting. We stay glued to see how the politics plays out this time and who will come out burnt or unbruised.
