Otunnu meets Inter-Party Cooperation

Aug 23, 2010

THE Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) president, Olara Otunnu, has said the party elders will decide on wether the UPC fronts a flag-bearer for a joint candidate in the Inter-Party Cooperation.

By Jeff Lule

THE Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) president, Olara Otunnu, has said the party elders will decide on whether the UPC fronts a flag-bearer for a joint candidate in the Inter-Party Cooperation.

Otunnu said this after a closed meeting with the IPC members at their offices in Nakasero, Kampala.

The group included Dr. Kizza Besigye (Forum for Democratic Change), Ken Lukyamuzi (Conservative Party) and other coalition members.

Otunnu said UPC will analyse all the issues discussed in the IPC meeting and decide on the way forward.

Before the talks, Otunnu said the meeting, which started at about 2:30pm, was convened to address ‘contentious issues’ in the IPC arrangement.

He said the talks would revolve around transparency, good faith and mutual respect, which he said had been agreed upon when UPC joined the coalition.

Last week, Otunnu and the entire UPC executive skipped the nomination of the 2011 joint candidate at Kololo Airstrip, raising fears that his party had snubbed the IPC, a coalition advocating for a single opposition candidate in the 2011 presidential polls.

UPC’s continued absence from the IPC activities has further dumped the mood in the opposition since DP has ruled out joining the coalition.

Meanwhile, the FDC wants politicians who were recently involved in election malpractices during the NRM primaries not to take part in the 2011 elections.

FDC spokesperson Wafula Oguttu said if the same politicians were allowed to contest against the opposition, they were likely to repeat what they did during the primaries.

He was addressing a press conference at the FDC headquarters in Kampala.
Oguttu announced that the party will hold elections for Kampala district and the western region tomorrow and thereafter hold the party’s primary elections.

Additional reporting by Charles Ariko

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