Africa-Press – Uganda. On one Friday in March 2020, a group of DP leaders secretly assembled at Pope Paul IV Memorial Hotel in an attempt to right the wrongs in the then-leadership structure of the Democratic Party.
After 10 years of Norbert Mao’s leadership, DP was in a crisis that glared divided loyalty between the mainstream DP and the then emerging People-Power movement activists.
Besides, the National Executive Committee of the Party had not convened for a while and a number of key positions on the NEC; including the National Chairperson, Secretary General, and National Treasurer were vacant since the departure of Muhammad Baswari Kezaala, the death of Mathias Nsubuga Birekeraawo, and the death of Isa Kikungwe, respectively.
The meeting that DP stalwarts mainly from Buganda held and dubbed the “National Council”, elected Wakiso District Chairperson, Matia Lwanga Bwanika as the party’s National Chairperson, Busiro MP Medard Sseggona as the Secretary-General and then Masaka Woman MP, Mary Babirye Kabanda as the party Treasurer.
The meeting was in response to a party resolution passed in December 2019 to have these positions and others filled. A grumbling section of the party folks dismissed the outcome of the meeting as “comedy”, claiming that the meeting had no convener as per the DP constitution. In Mao’s view, it was supposed to be chaired either by the National Chairperson or the Secretary-General.
Ironically, all such positions were vacant. Mao would later appoint Gerald Siranda, as the Secretary-General, widening deeper the cracks in the party between the “pumpkins” dining with the ruling NRM, and the “watermelons” leaning with the street brigade People-Power by then.
Whether it was a trap laid by the already decided democrats to join the revolutionary NUP, or a political mistake by Mao, that gave them an open excuse to drop the hoe and pick up an umbrella, the unwillingness for Mao to settle the crisis in the party was the political deathbed the DP laid by 2021.
As the Ballot year 2026 draws closer, the pre-2021 political malware of the DP has infected and now playing out loud in the FDC with the two factions counter-accusing each other, one accusing the other of being in bed with the ruling NRM and the latter pinching its fellow with misgivings of attempting to merge the blue key to the NUP umbrella.
The recent presence of the FDC Katonga faction at the launch of the NUP party headquarters fueled these speculations. With the poached former disgruntled member of the DP, NUP remains a fertile ground for the sidelined active political players in the FDC.
Besides, NUP being the face of the opposition for the last three years, its hunting ground remains members, with a view of a possible change of political guards in the country.
Logically, it appears as if, the Najjanankumbi faction has registered a technical knock-out against their counterparts in Katonga, having the legal support to legitimately conduct business on behalf of the FDC.
This similarly was the case for DP by 2020, with the mainstream leadership flapping their legal mandate and legitimacy with little or no attachments to the politically antagonistic masses. Individuals like John Paul Lukwago Mpalanyi, and Fortunate Nantongo of Kyotera, Dr. Lulume Bayiga, of Buikwe, Richard Lumu, of Mityana South, or Paul Luttamaguzi Ssemakula, of Nakaseke, and a few others, had their branding attached to NUP, even as DP flag-bearers.
Last Friday, as NUP was unveiling their headquarters in Makerere-Kavule, Mawokata South MP, and FDC chief whip in parliament, Yusuf Nsibambi, was launching a mobilization campaign to win “back Buganda” for the FDC, starting with districts of Kampala and Wakiso which is the current political garden of NUP.
You can imagine the “battle for the Buganda” vote, between Mathias Mpuuga of the NUP, in charge of Buganda, Yusuf Nsibambi of the Mainstream FDC, Erias Lukwago, of the embattled FDC-Katonga faction and the Godfrey Kiwanda of the ruling NRM. These are the dynamics and other concerns that are likely to force an emerging alliance between the Lukwago lead- FDC, and the NUP establishment.
Lukwago as a lawyer with political ambitions has been visible at the center of NUP legal battles. For instance, the most recent involving the embattled parliamentary commissioner, Francis Zzaake, but also other past ‘red camp’ related political cases.
Similarly, the former FDC Chief Whip in parliament Ssemujju Ibrahim Nganda publicly announced his possible exit from the politically staggering FDC.
The brand new Makerere-have gates are becoming wide-open day by day for these and others with limited choices to affiliate with other Political homesteads such as the Alliance for National Transformation or the National Unity Platform.
At a similar juncture, in the 2020 DP scenario, what came to be known as the DP-Bloc, was ruptured into the mainstream DP, and an exodus was present at the formation of NUP. Whether it is in the wisdom of the FDC leadership at Najjanankumbi to reconcile their difference with the Katonga faction, the political arena in the opposition calls for a definition, between change and collaborative politics.
For More News And Analysis About Uganda Follow Africa-Press
