UPC welcomes EC appointments

Nov 24, 2016

Opposition failed to use the Inter-Party Organisation forum to push for their demands

Contrary to other opposition parties that have criticized the newly appointed Electoral Commission (EC) appointments, the Uganda People's Congress (UPC) party has welcomed the new commisioners.

"UPC welcomes the appointment of a new chairperson and members of the Independent EC by the President. We only request the new commission to implement the recommended electoral reforms," the UPC publicist Michael Osinde said.

He argued that their counterparts in the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) are to blame for President Yoweri Museveni's move to appoint new commissioners because they turned down the meeting with him.

Last week, Museveni appointed the new commissioners replacing Dr. Badru Kiggundu's team. The new commission is headed by Justice Simon Byakagaba.

Osinde who was addressing journalists at the party headquarters in Kampala, said the opposition failed to use the Inter-Party Organisation (IPOD) forum to push for their demands as a single voice, after some refused to show up at the July meeting with the President at State House in Entebbe.

"The President agreed to meet the opposition through IPOD. We thought we would use the opportunity to present names; but at the last moment, our friends from FDC turned down the invitation yet Nandala Mafabi was chairing the council" he noted.

FDC opted out of the IPOD activities shortly after leaders of Democratic Party and UPC had held a meeting with the President on July 1, 2015, under the auspice of IPOD. FDC claimed they had not sanctioned the meeting yet DP said they did, and withdrew at the last hour.

"We lost out. This should be a lesson to us. We need to embrace dialogue through IPOD with the ruling government if we are to achieve what we want" Osinde added.

He said the President acted within in the law to appoint new commissioners since Kiggundu's term had ended.

Mafabi, the FDC secretary general however rubbished the allegations saying; "they are telling lies because they are in already in NRM".   

Osinde also clarified media reports that the UPC president, Jimmy Akena was thrown out of a UPC delegates meeting in Lira last week.

"It was not even a UPC meeting because it was not called by UPC structure in Lira. Even the person who presided over the said meeting was Julius Ochen an independent MP. He is therefore not mandated to call or host any UPC meeting" he explained.    

He noted that Akena only visited the venue as the area MP to establish what kind of meeting was taking place that he was not aware of.

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