Three weeks after the new DP President General, Norbert Mao, announced that unifying the party would be his number one priority, he is finding it hard to deliver on his pledge, partly because there are no willing takers of his peace overtures.

Individual pride and a clash of egos appear to stand in the way of reconciliatory efforts, analysts say.
Nasser Sebaggala, the man Mao defeated in Mbale, formed his own political party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), last week, effectively ending his membership of Uganda’s oldest party.

While Mao is yet to formally reach out to the other groups that include Betty Nambooze and Erias Lukwago on the one hand, and Rainer Kafiire, Prof. Joseph Mukiibi, Samuel Lubega, Lulume Bayigga and John Baptist Kakooza on the other, the rift shows no signs of abating.  

Paul Kakande, the deputy spokesperson of DP, said they had agreed at a recent NEC meeting that members personally reach out to the splinter group and woo its members.

On the surface, the Nambooze and Kafiire’s group claim they are reluctant to make up with Mao because he is a product of a rigged process. Working with him, they say, would amount to legitimising his leadership.

However, there is also a firm belief by some in Nambooze and Kafiire’s camps that they ought to be in the driving seat instead of those elected at the Mbale conference.

Specifically, Nambooze and Lukwago believe they have done so much for the party, and that any settlement to bring them on board must consider their leadership roles.

Nambooze told The Observer that it would be unfair to reconcile with someone who has already benefited from a “fraudulent exercise.”

“Unless he can accept to first stand down and we hold another delegates’ conference, this thing of reconciliation will not work,” Nambooze said.

Kampala Central MP, Erias Lukwago, who maintains he does not belong to any faction, just laughed off the suggestion of reconciling with Mao’s group and said it is not a topic he would want to dwell on.

J.B. Kakooza, a member of the party’s National Council before Mbale, has gone on record several times, blasting Mao and his newly elected executive.

“As I watched Mao celebrate his ‘victory’, my mind went back to 1980. Then, I watched with consternation Milton Obote celebrate his ‘victory’ in a fraud that was soon to spur fratricidal war that lasted five years,” Kakooza recently wrote in The Observer.

Indeed, reconciliation shall not come easy if suspicion and egos are not set aside. Lukwago, for instance, has to be prepared to sit on the same table with his successor, Mukasa Mbidde, whom he does not seem to regard highly.

He will also have to mend fences with Vincent Mayanja, the Deputy Secretary General, whom he suspects orchestrated the defeat of his candidates in the DP grassroots elections in Kampala.

The same shall be expected of Lulume Bayiga and Mathias Nsubuga, the DP Secretary General. Over the last two years, these two have fought over the post of Secretary General, each claiming to be the legitimate office bearer.

Since the Mbale conference elected Nsubuga unopposed, there could be more friction between the two MPs who hardly exchange pleasantries even when their paths cross at Parliament.

Yet it is Mao’s group that shall have to make harder decisions. With no positions to fill on the party’s National Executive Committee, it will be interesting to see how Mao plans to accommodate these party stalwarts.

Where does he plan to deploy Lukwago or Prof. Mukiibi? Shall he, for instance, prevail on some of his colleagues to resign their positions even if they were elected?

Kakande said sharing positions was out of the question.
“They can contribute without having positions on the executive. What we primarily want is for them to work with us and to move together,” he said.

Nambooze advised that the Mbale conference should be declared null and void and a new process undertaken to elect new office bearers. Given the financial and other logistical implications, Nambooze’s option is likely not to be accepted.

In any case, the Kafiire group has made it clear that it will go ahead with its own delegates’ conference in April to elect its office bearers, meaning that we are likely to have ‘two DPs’, each claiming to be the legitimate one.

In the end, the matters are likely to be forwarded to the courts of law. But Ladislas Rwakafuzi, a constitutional lawyer, believes the issue of legitimacy of the factions cannot be determined by the courts of law.

“These are matters of allegiances. If court declares Mao not to be the legitimate president of DP, it will not stop some people from recognising him as such. Likewise, the other group also has followers,” Rwakafuzi said:

In his view, it is much better for the warring factions to settle their differences amicably. With a presidential election less than a year away, DP still has much political ground to cover. It is yet to engage in any serious form of political mobilisation and it remains vague on whether it will join the Inter-Party Alliance (IPA) – a loose coalition of major opposition parties in the country.

More importantly, it must move forward as a united and focused group, a task that is proving to be elusive.

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