Envoys Call For Parties Dialogue

By Felix OsikeTHIRTEEN heads of mission and organisations accredited to Uganda have called for dialogue between the Movement and the multipartyists on the opening up of the political space.At a closed-meeting with presidency minister Prof. Gilbert Bukenya yesterday, the donors also expressed concern at the slow pace of the constitutional review process.“They were concerned about the need to have more dialogue with the opposition and on the slowness towards the constitutional review,” Bukenya told The New Vision after the one-and-a-half-hour meeting at the President’s Office, VIP room. Bukenya said he assured the donors that the work of the Constitutional Review Commission is a priority and is “on course.” Yesterday’s meeting follows an earlier statement by the donors soon after the Political Parties and Organisations Bill was passed recently. The statement said the Bill did “not appear to advance the process of democratic transition which needs to take place in good time before 2006.”Clause 21 of the POB prohibits political parties or organisations from opening offices below the national level and from holding meetings at district level. Bukenya said all the constitutional provisions were complied with.The envoys’ group was led by the Charge d’Affaires of the Irish Embassy, Mairtin O’Fainin, who is also the leader of the Post Referendum Support Group (PRSG). “It is part of the ongoing dialogue on a broad range of issues,” he said. Also at the meeting were British High Commissioner Tom Phillips, Huber Konstatin (Austria), Rhonda Ferguson (US), Maurizio Teucci (Italy), Matthieu Peters (Netherlands) Tore Vjoes (Norway), Hans Andresson (Sweden), Karin Stoll, deputy head of mission Germany embassy, Tatsuya Miki (Japan), Carl Peters (Belgium), Sigurd Illing (EU), Dauda Toure (UNDP), Pederson Bjork (Denmark) and Jean Pierre Thiant (France). Multipartyists recently called for the intervention of the international community to ensure that political parties are not suffocated. They also appealed to the donors to make freedom of association one of the benchmarks for political accountability.They vowed to defy the party ban imposed by the Bill. The donors said while it was up to Ugandans to choose their own system of democracy, they would continue to emphasise their interest in Uganda’s continuing transition to a full implementation of democratic principles to ensure sustainability of the country’s progress.Ends