Opposition to call for a crisis retreat

By Henry Sekanjako

The Ugandan opposition is planning to call for a crisis retreat this week to resolve internal rifts that it is currently facing.

According to the chairman of the Interparty Coalition (IPC), also president of the General Justice Forum (JEEMA) Asumani Basaliriwa, the retreat is aimed at what he called ‘putting their [opposition] house in order’.

“We must cease fire; what is happening is not good for us. The ruling party National Resistance Movement (NRM) must be celebrating over what is happening to the opposition,” Basarirwa said in an interview with New Vision online.

Basaliriwa, who is organizing the retreat noted that he had started sending letters to opposition party leaders and secretary generals informing them about the proposed retreat.

“We want the retreat to happen early this week before the situation goes out of hand,” he noted.

Last week, during the elections for Uganda’s representative to the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA), the opposition was left torn apart when some opposition parties decided to participate in the elections which the main opposition party FDC and JEEMA boycotted.

The move has since split the opposition, with the leader of opposition in Parliament, Nandala Mafabi suspending Democratic Party (DP), Uganda peoples’ congress (UPC) and Conservative Party (CP) from the shadow cabinet for taking party in the EALA elections.

This originated from the planned boycott of the regional legislative elections which DP, UPC and CP failed to live up to.

The opposition rift deepened more on Friday when Mafabi fired two of the opposition MPs serving as vice chairpersons on the Parliamentary oversight committees, accusing some members of dinning with the NRM.