Africa-Press – Uganda. A section of 17 members of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC)’s National Executive Committee (NEC) yesterday called upon the party members across the country to shun what they called the ongoing sham internal elections.
The members, who accused the Secretary General, Mr Nathan Nandala Mafabi, of being at the centre of the said sham elections, called for a halt to the ongoing election exercise.
They added that the party president, Mr Patrick Amuriat Oboi, should immediately convene a special NEC meeting to discuss a fresh electoral roadmap.
But Mr Mafabi told the delegates that their major role in the electoral process is to approve the electoral guidelines, “which they did in May”.
“The powers to approve or cancel an election are vested in the hands of the Special National Council, which did approve the ongoing exercise last Friday,” he said.
Mr Mafabi added that the election will go on as planned and no one will stop it.
The issue of elections was hotly discussed during last Friday’s chaotic Special National Council meeting, with some members recommending the cancellation of the entire process. Others asked the Council to legalise it.
After hours of intense debate, the party’s National Chairman, Mr Wasswa Birigwa, accused the angry members of disrespecting him. Party’s vice chairperson for eastern, Ms Salaamu Musumba, later told journalists that nothing had been resolved, a thing that upset and forced Amuriat to storm out of the press conference.
Yesterday, the NEC members reminded Mr Mafabi and a few other leaders of the core values of the old FDC and they vowed not to sell their party to Mr Museveni.
“We are going to do everything possible to ensure that we stop this mess. The party does not belong to one, two or three people. It is unfortunate that the NEC cannot sit at the party headquarters but we are going to win back our party, and get it back to its structures,” the FDC deputy president in-charge of Buganda region, Mr Erias Lukwago, said.
His deputy at city hall, who is also a NEC member, Ms Doreen Nyanjura, said she would not just sit back and watch the party slide into the hands of the ruling regime. The NEC members, who turned up for the news conference on Friday last week, unanimously declared the ongoing polls null and void, with all recommending for the NEC retreat, which will discuss the new electoral map, the budget and its clear funding.
On June 16, a NEC meeting accordingly resolved to put a stop on the entire electoral roadmap until the retreat was held to discuss internal wrangles that had come-up. Mr Birigwa reportedly wrote to Mr Mafabi on July 4, asking him to pause the entire process until this retreat is held.
In the July 6 letter, Mr Mafabi instead directed all district chairpersons and general secretaries to register and update the registrars because the exercise had been going on since 2015.
“During this period of the structure roadmap, we are providing registration books and sheets to extract the village membership that will be used by the Electoral Commission to conduct structures in the respective districts. Each Sub-Region will be provided with a computer for Data Entry,” reads part of the letter which Mr Mafabi acknowledged to have written yesterday. He, however, said the majority of the NEC members contesting the elections are serving for their last terms and mooting plans to linger on power, which they will not allow.
The FDC NEC members yesterday unanimously called for the resignation of the party EC Chairperson, Mr Toterebuka Bamwenda, the disbandment of the entire EC to allow constitution of a new, credible and impartial EC, and a proposed new electoral roadmap presented to NEC for approval.
They also asked the new EC to present a budget to finance the National Executive Committee for approval and called for the resignation of Mr Nandala, Mr Amuriat and any other party leaders who intend to participate in the election.
“An interim leadership is constituted to steer the party up to the next delegates’ conference. You cannot be party to organising elections which you are part of,” the party spokesperson Mr Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda said.
Our efforts to get a comment from Mr Bamwenda were futile because his known phone was not available by press time, but Mr Nandala when asked to respond to the accusations of influencing the Commission said: “They are accusing the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission for nothing, these people are doing their job independently without anybody’s intervention,” he said.
Neither Mr Amuriat nor Birigwa was available for a comment by press time.
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