Opposition alliance nominates Mao

By Nicholas Wassajja

The Democratic Party (DP) President Norbert Mao has been nominated as an aspiring joint presidential candidate of The Democratic Alliance (TDA) ahead of the 2016 general elections.

Mao was nominated Monday morning by the TDA, a political grouping that brings together several opposition political parties and civil society organisations.  The brief function took place at their head offices in Naguru, a kampala suburb.

Accompanied by a handful of party officials, Mao was received by TDA candidates committee chairman Livingstone Okello Okello and TDA director general Bishop Zac Niringeye .

The President of the Democratic Party (DP) Norbert Mao (right)  received by the former Deputy Mayor Sulaiman Kidandi centre  and   Secretary General Matia Nsubuga on arrival present his papers to the chairman of the Democratic Alliance (TDA) in Kampala 7/9/15. Photo by Wilfred Sanya    

Livingstone Okello Okello said that after receiving of forms from all interested aspirants, the national candidate’s selection committee will go for a closed door retreat where they will scrutinize their papers and come up with a report that will be presented to the TDA summit for consideration during consensus to come up with a joint candidate.

Mao is now so far set to face off with former vice president Gilbert Bukenya who was nominated Friday under form number JPC 001.

Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) flag bearer Kiiza Besigye is expected to be nominated Tuesday.

President of the Democratic Party (DP) Norbert Mao signing his papers at the  Democratic Alliance (TDA)  headquarters in Kampala as flag bearer for the  Presidential  elections 7/9/15 in Kampala. Left is the former Deputy Mayor Sulaiman Kidandala and the Secretary General of DP Matia Nsubuga. Photo by Wilfred Sanya

“TDA is an electoral platform which means everything we are doing right now is in preparation to the 2016 general elections. Whoever argues otherwise must come up with a very comprehensive plan on how to do it,” Mao said after his nomination.
 
Mao was alluding to Besigye’s argument during his campaigns for the FDC flag bearer that elections should not take place without the much agitated for constitutional and electoral reforms.

Last month, parliament without considering the minority report passed the constitutional amendment Bill (2015) providing for, among others, changing of the name of the electoral commission to the independent electoral commission appointed by the President.

The Bill was highly contested by opposition political parties and civil society organisations saying that the core reforms they had proposed like reconstituting the EC to guarantee free and fair elections and reinstating term limits had been left out.

Mao said, “we all agree that electoral  reforms must be achieved for free and fair elections but there is a woman who has just died while giving birth and I don’t think she will wait for another five years. We are saying lets organize for a serious matchup against Museveni concurrently with the fight for electoral reforms.”

TDA is receiving all presidential nomination forms from September 10th to 15th.

The process that started with call for expression of interest and picking of presidential nomination forms on August 25th is supposed to climax on September 14th with TDA summit announcing joint presidential candidate and campaign team.

The TDA roadmap also indicates September 6th-8th and 10th-13th as retreats to process nomination for joint candidates and TDA summit to decide on joint candidate and campaign team respectively.