Mao gets hero’s welcome in Gulu

Feb 28, 2010

BUSINESS in Gulu town came to a standstill on Saturday as thousands lined the streets to welcome the newly-elected president of the Democratic Party (DP), Norbert Mao.

By Chris Ocowun

BUSINESS in Gulu town came to a standstill on Saturday as thousands lined the streets to welcome the newly-elected president of the Democratic Party (DP), Norbert Mao.

Shops closed as market vendors and shop attendants abandoned their businesses, chanting ‘Mao, Obama’.

Mzee Opoka Pyen Lyec performed the Acholi ritual of sprinkling water on Mao and cutting a string before he entered Kaunda grounds to address a public rally.

The Gulu district chairman last week defeated Kampala mayor Nasser Sebaggala to become the party’s fifth president.

Mao polled 708 votes against Sebaggala’s 321 votes. However, one faction of DP has dismissed the delegates’ conference as illegal while Sebaggala on Tuesday announced he was quitting DP and would form his own party.

During the rally, Mao explained that becoming a DP president was more difficult than becoming the President of Uganda. He called for the two-term presidential limit to be reinstated. “We don’t want leaders who cling to power like ticks.”

He said people of Ankole and western Uganda were now also waking up and demanding for liberation, like other parts of the country.

Mao dismissed reports that the Buganda kingdom did not supporting his candidature because people link his name, Mao, to former president Milton Apollo Obote.

“The year 2011 will be a defining moment. In 2011, the ballot papers will defeat the bullets. The young people will fight for their future.”

He told the rally that his election as the DP president marks the end to the era of one-man’s rule within the party and in Uganda.

“We ended the era of one-man’s rule in DP and we shall not be corrupt. There is a new wave of leadership coming and we want you to be part of that wave. Let Museveni be the last President to walk on blood to go to State House,”

He struck a conciliatory note when he said he had come to mend the divisions in the country, not to open wounds of the past.

“My candidature is about healing. This country needs healing. We should not open the scars and old wounds,” Mao told the crowd.

Flanked by former DP president Ssebaana Kizito, he said the campaign was not about him or DP.

“This campaign is about widows who want a livelihood, pensioners who want their pensions paid, victims of crimes who want security, road users who are tired of potholes and taxpayers who are tired of corruption.”

The only way to fight corruption, he said, was through personal example. “If corruption exists in you, you cannot fight corruption. There is a stench of corruption around President Museveni and the NRM party.”

He also told the crowd that he would act as a bridge between the different regions and as an alternative candidate for the youth, adding that Ugandans had lost hope in the electoral process because they would find the same candidates on the ballot papers.

Comparing Museveni to an old Tata lorry that gets stuck going up the hill, he said the time for the NRM Government was up.

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