Opposition leaders hold meetings on reforms

Feb 05, 2014

Opposition leaders have been holding several meetings together with the civil society and religious leaders to draft the necessary electoral and political reforms for the 2016 elections.

By Moses Mulondo  

Opposition leaders have been holding several meetings together with the civil society and religious leaders to draft the necessary electoral and political reforms for the 2016 elections.
 
Wafula Oguttu, the newly appointed Leader of Opposition in Parliament, told The New Vision that leaders of opposition parties have held series of meetings to draft the reforms.
 
The Bukholi Central MP said the opposition together with the civil society have planned to launch 10 demands for ensuring free and fair elections in 2016.
 
Wafula said last year the minister for justice wrote to the outgoing Leader of Opposition requesting for the reforms the opposition wanted to be included in the amendments government was planning to table in parliament.
 
“We submitted to government the reforms they requested but up to now it seems nothing has been done. As the opposition we want the reforms to be passed in parliament by April,” Wafula explained.
 
Sources have revealed that immediately after the launch, the opposition in conjunction with the civil society will carry out massive sensitization of the citizens on their democratic and voting rights.
 
Some of the 10 demands the opposition will announce, according to sources, include an independent electoral commission, clean voters’ register, restoration of presidential term limits, barring an incumbent president from using state resources in the campaigns, and exclusion of the military from the electoral process.
 
Wafula said as the opposition they are unhappy that government has gone ahead to implement activities for the 2016 elections before building national consensus on the matter.
 
“For instance, the ongoing exercise for National Identity Cards which the Electoral Commission is part of should have been done after the reforms have been passed because the reforms would provide the best framework agreeable to all of us to do such activities,” Wafula argued.
 
Meanwhile, Wafula cast doubt on President Yoweri Museveni’s regret on the atrocities committed by NRA/UPDF soldiers during the LRA insurgency, arguing the confessions are meant to blackmail Gen Mugisha Muntu and Gen. David Sejusa who plan to stand against him in the 2016 elections. 
 
“If the president is serious about this matter, let government facilitate an independent commission of inquiry to investigate all the atrocities committed against Ugandans since independent,” he proposed. 

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