NRM legislators will this Tuesday converge at State House Entebbe to select six of Uganda’s representatives to the East African Legislative Assembly, before attention turns to how the opposition slots are shared.
Reliable sources have told The Observer that on Saturday, President Museveni convinced the NRM Central Executive Committee meeting in Entebbe to let the MPs choose from among the NRM 43 aspirants. CEC had planned to whittle the list down about 12; but Museveni said nearly 80 per cent of the aspirants were known to him, and wondered who CEC was going to eliminate.
“For me I think so long as someone is not corrupt, is not [undisciplined], and has the necessary qualifications, we should leave them for the caucus to decide,” a source quoted Museveni as having told CEC, the ruling party’s second highest organ after the delegates’ conference.
Our sources said Museveni asked government chief whip Ruth Nankabirwa and his defence advisor Maj Gen Proscovia Nalweyiso to have the MPs bussed to Entebbe on Tuesday morning. Museveni reportedly said he wanted the selection in State House lest his party MPs get “confused” by people like opposition MPs Abdu Katuntu and Ssemujju Nganda.
CEC said MPs must make sure that the six choices represent people with disability, women, youths and all the regions (North, East, Central, West and Kampala).
But The Observer understands that sections of CEC wanted Kampala to be excluded as a region, which would blunt the chances of former MP Francis Babu. With competition tight, insiders said, candidates combining various parameters stand a higher chance. For instance former Kakuuto MP Mathias Kasamba comes from central region but he is also disabled, having lost one arm.
OPPOSITION SLOTS
Uganda has nine slots to Eala, six for NRM, two for the opposition, and one for an independent candidate. NRM’s decision to use its numerical strength to determine its six outside parliament points to a fierce battle among the three parliamentary opposition parties for two slots.
FDC, the largest opposition party, is today set to select its own candidates at the party headquarters in Najjanankumbi. FDC has 36 MPs in the 10th parliament, the Democratic Party has 14, while UPC has six.
DP has already chosen Fred Mukasa Mbidde as its candidate for Eala; but FDC spokesman and opposition chief whip Ssemujju Ibrahim Nganda said his party must take the two slots on the basis of its numbers in parliament.
“NRM’s decision to use its numerical strength has put the speaker in a difficult position, because the speaker cannot now say that let the opposition give us 20 names and parliament votes on them” Ssemujju said. “The best the speaker can say is that let the opposition caucus and give us its names; and there we have 36 MPs and they [DP and UPC] have only 20; so we would defeat them.”
Asked if this would not be unfair, at least to DP, Ssemujju reminded The Observer of the acrimony that marred the last Eala elections in 2012. Then, FDC argued that each party in the Ugandan parliament should take at least one Eala slot but NRM insisted on taking six.
FDC then mobilized the opposition to boycott the elections so that Uganda’s EALA representatives would be rejected for not reflecting all the ‘political shades’ in the Ugandan parliament. But, Ssemujju charged yesterday, that boycott was failed by DP and now their decision should come back to haunt them.
“We signed a deal to boycott at midday, but at 2pm DP was in the House presenting Mukasa Mbidde to be voted on, and the NRM MPs clapped and celebrated very loudly,” Ssemujju said.
With UPC and DP unlikely to give up their Eala slots without a fight, this sets the ground for more political drama. One source said that on Saturday, some CEC voices warned that choosing six NRM candidates would affect ‘friendly’ candidates like Mukasa Mbidde, while allowing FDC to push through the likes of Ingrid Turinawe.
But those voices were silenced because CEC was preoccupied with how to sort out “our own people”.
Once that’s done, there is no telling what NRM could do in a bid to out-manoeuvre FDC. One option would be to select the six but allow other weak NRM candidates to be nominated; but this was opposed in Entebbe, with CEC unwilling to take chances.
TANGA GRILLED
Before Saturday, CEC had met in Entebbe on Thursday, largely to discuss the party’s roadmap for the selection of its candidates for Eala. But yet again, the meeting ended up being bogged down by the broken relationship between the party secretariat and its electoral commission.
The Observer has been told that the conflict between the NRM secretariat and Tanga was first reignited on January 27, when Clerk to Parliament Jane Kibirige wrote to secretary generals of the four political parties with representation in Parliament, communicating the calendar for the election of Uganda’s Eala representatives.
On getting Kibirige’s letter, the NRM secretariat leadership hoped to schedule a meeting to discuss a draft roadmap that would be presented to CEC for approval.
According to insider sources, NRM Secretary General Justine Kasule Lumumba told last Thursday’s meeting that she was shocked to hear that Tanga had called a press conference to announce his own programme and guidelines for elections, which had not been approved by CEC as the NRM constitution provides.
When Lumumba raised the matter, it drew the ire of the CEC members.
“He [Tanga] was quizzed and blamed for his insubordinate actions because he started that process without consulting anyone at the secretariat,” an insider source told The Observer on Friday.
The former history lecturer was also asked how he came up with the decision to charge Shs 2m in nomination fees for the Eala contestants. Some members wanted Tanga to refund Shs 1.5m to each contestant but this was rejected.
Tanga declined to answer or return our repeated calls. He didn’t also respond to our text messages seeking his comment. It was at the end of that meeting that all the 43 contestants were summoned to Entebbe with their curriculum vitae on Saturday, ready to be interviewed by the CEC members.
MONEY
It is also understood that CEC was worried about the highly-commercialised contest for the Eala slots. The matter was raised by Mike Mukula, the NRM vice chairman for Eastern Uganda, who said the sanctity of Parliament had been abused by both the aspirants and the voter MPs who have turned it into an arena for making quick money and getting gifts.
Tanga was tasked to talk to the NRM aspirants to stop bribing MPs for votes. During an NRM candidates meeting with Tanga at the party’s EC offices on Friday, he said, the party had subsequently deployed scouts at Parliament to look out for any of its aspirants bribing MPs.
“We are asking the candidates to stop oiling [bribing] the MPs and at the same time the MPs should stop demanding to be oiled,” Tanga told journalists on Friday.
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