Uganda People's Congress has avoided the dangerous divisions that continue to bedevil their colleagues in the Democratic Party and now they look forward to choosing their new leaders in a delegates conference scheduled for Saturday March 13.

However sentiments expressed by senior UPC officials indicate that more than 24 years after having been removed from power, the party is still doing clean up.

Patrick Mwondha, who exited the race for party president in favour of Olara Otunnu and also the party's current national treasurer, says the party still has a lot to do in improving its image especially on the international scene.

"We have a duty to clean ourselves up to the international community and our brother who has been president of the Security Council can do that best," Mwondha said.

Mwondha further argues that UPC's problem has been the failure by the party to convince the international community that they are a good political party, which is why he has decided to support Otunnu whose international exposure and stature as former UN Undersecretary General, is crucial in accomplishing that task.

Mwondha argues it is childish for UPC to continue to wish away its stained international reputation and not do anything about it, and yet the two coups that overthrew the Obote governments twice were as a result of interference from the international community.

"Eight people were too big a number, to be pushing for the same position. It would be easy for an outsider to come, disorganize us and hand us an undesirable candidate," argues Mwondha.

However, another presidential candidate and current national chairman Yona Kanyomozi, says the party does not need the international community but rather that it needs internal democracy.

Olara Otunnu appears to be the front runner in a race that could dethrone the Obotes from power yet another time. The former President Milton Obote's wife Miria Obote has been party president for more than five years since the family returned from exile.

Her son and Member of Parliament for Lira municipality Jimmy Akena wants to succeed her mother. However opposition to the continuity of the Obote dynasty and stranglehold over the party appears to be significant and a huge roadblock to Akena's candidacy.

As Mwondha remarked, it is not desirable to personalize a struggle the same way it was bad to personalize power.

"We in the UPC always castigate Museveni for turning government organs into party organs, but it is equally dangerous to personalise the struggle," said Mwondha.

Otunnu himself is not without qualms. Some quarters accuse him of supporting Bazilio Okello and Tito Okello Lutwa's coup against Obote in 1985.

Mwondha defends Otunnu for the role he played in the Tito Okello government saying the former UN senior man was not an active player in the coup and that if he committed some mistakes, he should be forgiven.

"A coup is an event at the end of the process and that process started long before Otunnu joined the Okellos," Mwondha says while blaming the late President for taking long to appoint an army chief of staff after the death of Oyite Ojok which he says caused restlessness in army ranks.

In another defence of Otunnu, one Clement Kasenda Ddumba former chief of intelligence in the Obote II government has written arguing that Otunnu shouldn't be associated with participating in the overthrow of Obote, because he joined the Okello's after they had overthrown the President.

Those accusations have not stopped more people from lining behind the man who only recently got his Ugandan passport after alleging that President Museveni had blocked him from retuning to Uganda.

Otunnu has secured support from key party officials including Chwa county MP and UPC Chief Whip in Parliament Livingstone Okello Okello, former Party Secretary Peter Walubiri and several others that were sacked by Miria Obote allegedly after they went to Kenya to meet with Otunnu inviting him back to Uganda to participate in national politics.  

The other candidates competing for the party presidency are Joseph Ochieno chairman of UPC chapter in Britain, Dr. Opulu Dickson a practicing physician in Uganda, Henry Mayega, an administrator at Makerere University, Sospaster Akwenyu, a proprietor of a secondary school in Mbuya and Dr. Luwero Samuel a former rebel against the NRM. blog comments powered by Disqus

< Prev		Next >