Parliament, EU to hold multiparty dialogue

The Parliament in collaboration with the European Union (EU) will hold a workshop on strengthening multiparty democracy and electoral reforms, Speaker Edward Ssekandi has said.



The Parliament in collaboration with the European Union (EU) will hold a workshop on strengthening multiparty democracy and electoral reforms, Speaker Edward Ssekandi has said.

The workshop will bring together Government leaders, opposition parties, civil society organisations, the private sector and local government officials.

Ssekandi said the three-day seminar would elaborate on how to attain an electoral system that guarantees regular, free and fair elections as well as universal suffrage.

“The workshop will strengthen political governance through the adoption of a framework to promote multiparty democracy in Uganda,” Ssekandi told journalists yesterday.

The Leader of Opposition in Parliament, Prof. Morris Ogenga Latigo, commended the speaker’s initiative, saying it was critical as regards multiparty democracy. “As the opposition, we shall participate, but to a level which we are yet to agree on.”

Vincent De Visscher, the head of the EU delegation, said Uganda needed to conduct civic education on multiparty democracy, if the locals are to support it.

The EU has remitted Euros 7,000,000 (about sh16.8b) for human rights and good governance programmes.

Visscher said although the EU was concerned with the need to reform the country’s democratic system to meet the aspirations of a changing society, it could not demand for the changes, but help Ugandans create them. “We are not here to solve your problems. We are here to help you solve them yourselves.”