By Kato Ssemakula
Former deputy speaker of parliament, Jacob Oulanyah has said it is high time the image of parliament is redeemed after being tarnished.
Oulanyah is the second person to be nominated by the NRM electoral commission led by Dr Tanga Odoi for the Position.
Speaker Rebecca Kadaga was nominated on Wednesday to contest for the position.
NRM Central Executive Committee will sit on Sunday this week to choose who would represent the party in the Speakership Election.
After nomination, Oulanyah told Journalists at the NRM secretariat that he was optimistic he will win the race.
The election is expected to take place on Monday 24th May at Kololo airstrip during the first sitting of the 11th Parliament.
The Omoro County MP was on Friday morning speaking at the NRM electoral commission headquarters in Kyadondo after expressing her interest to challenge the speakership job in the 11th Parliament.
“We want to build trust with the public that when you go to your constituency, people will stand and say a Member of Parliament has come. We want to change the way we do things,”Oulanyah said.
“We don’t want the next five years to be like the previous five years of parliament. We want history to be rewritten and the story of parliament to be retold.”
He noted that in the past five years, the public has resented parliament but noted it is high time this is reversed.
“We want to restore confidence for the people in the institution where they send their representatives.”
The Race:
There has been a stalemate for a long time on the choice of candidate in the speakership race for the ruling NRM party.
Oulanyah’s camp openly says he is the rightful candidate for the party in the speakership race after an alleged 2016 agreement that he lets Kadaga complete her 10-year tenure as speaker of parliament and he takes over from there.
However, on the other side, Kadaga has vehemently dismissed the same, saying there has never been such an agreement.
Speaking on Friday, Oulanyah insisted that there was a decision made by the party’s top organ in 2016 regarding the speakership race , adding that whereas he was not comfortable with the decision, he accepted to honor it.
“I was not comfortable with the decision but respected it. Immediately after that, the person I stood down for(Kadaga) went round and campaigned for somebody else to be deputy speaker. I won by majority and up to now, I respect CEC and caucus decisions,”Oulanyah said.
According to the Omoro County MP, it is high time the 11th parliament got a speaker who will stick to their word and not one who changes colour like a chameleon.
“I am not a person who says this and does another. I have expressed interest( in becoming speaker) and anybody who had doubt now knows,”Oulanyah who was being flanked by several MPs said.
The race turned a contest of egos when camps in the NRM race accused one another of failure, disrespect and participating in trivial acts.
Other contestants for the Position Include Ssemujju Nganda of the FDC, Richard Ssebamala of DP and Independent candidate Juliet Kinyamatama.
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