The nominations for the Members of Parliament ended last week and all candidates and their voters are waiting for the roadmap from the Independent Electoral Commission. However, as other candidates, political parties are waiting for this roadmap; National Resistance Movement (NRM) has already registered victory and six of its party members are just waiting to take the oath as MPs in the eleventh parliament.
The unopposed candidates include; Dr. Emley Kugonza of Buyanga East County in Kibaale District, Hilary Lokong of Ik County in Kaabong District, Ssemwanga Gyavira of Buyamba County in Rakai District, Enock Nyongore of Nakaseke North in Nakaseke District, Arua District Woman Representative, Lilian Paparu Obiale and Pius Wakabi of Buyahya County in Hoima District.
Of the six unopposed Parliamentary candidates, one stands out-for obvious reasons. Hon. Papalu Lillian Obiale, the NRM Woman MP Arua District which is the home of the National Unity Platform Deputy Principle and grass root mobilizer Dr. Lina Zedriga. Additional to that, Arua, as a district has been referred to as the NUP political base in West-Nile but with all the so called NUP support, the party failed to find anyone to raise their flag in Arua.
When the Hon. Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu aka Bobi Wine was unveiling NUP, he publically promised Ugandans and his foreign funders that his political party was well prepared to have candidates in each and every political position. Surprisingly, NUP has already showed political exit signs when it failed to have representatives in six parliamentary slots.
In what is supposed to be a very competitive election, NRM already has unopposed parliamentary candidates. Let this be a lesson to Bobi Wine and his colleagues that building a strong party structure is far different from having supporters on social media. It takes time and strategy that people can believe and trust in an ideology to an extent that no one would wish to compete against that ideology.
This should be a wakeup call to the NUP administration that they should prepare for a tsunami in the coming elections since NRM has already shown indicators of not giving any chance to the opposition politicians. Dr. Lina Zedriga should just resign since she has caused NUP misery in Arua. In case there was no potential candidate in her district, she would have contested just to make us believe Bobi’s words of having a candidate in each and every political position in Uganda. The moment the Deputy Principle failed to get a candidate in her own district proves that Bobi Wine is walking side by side with an incompetent team that has already failed his party
David Serumaga
Works with Uganda Media Center
