By Patrick Okino

Dokolo district Woman MP Cecilia Ogwal has said Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) presidential candidate and leader of opposition in Parliament Nathan Nandala Mafabi is unfit to lead the party.

She said Mafabi is arrogant and has a poor mobilization strategy.

“Mafabi has failed to unite the opposition in Parliament. Then above all, he has shown that he is not strategic, very arrogant and not tactical,” Ogwal said on Tuesday.

She said the right candidate for the FDC party presidency was Maj. Gen. Mugisha Muntu and added that voting Mafabi to lead the FDC was like giving the party a decent ‘political burial’.

“He was not there when Parliamentary Advocacy Forum (PAFO) started. How can he lead FDC?” Ogwal asked.

Ogwal, who contested with Mafabi to lead the opposition in Parliament last year, said NRM was a military Government where teargas and intimidation are the order of the day.

She said Muntu was the candidate who knew how the NRM, Reform Agenda and PAFO led to FDC’s formation.

Ogwal said she did not feel happy when Mafabi failed to produce an FDC candidate for the East African Legislative Assembly elections.

The spokesperson for Mafabi’s campaign team, Sarah Eperu, dismissed Ogwal’s accusations, saying she was just sour-graping.

“Cecilia Ogwal wanted to be the leader of opposition in Parliament, but she failed,” she said.

Eperu said Ogwal should not blame Mafabi, but rather the person who appointed him.

“Ogwal should blame the person who appointed Mafabi. Mafabi had wanted to become speaker but he lost. He actually wanted to go back to the public accounts committee, but he was appointed as the leader of the opposition,” said Eperu.

She added that most of the FDC MPs who were against Mafabi had failed to take the seat of the leader of the opposition. She accused them of being bad losers.

The other candidate in the race to replace the FDC party president, Dr. Kizza Besigye, is Tororo County MP, Godfrey Ekanya.

The elections are scheduled to take place in November.