By Elias Biryabarema
Oct 2, 2003
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KAMPALA – The Uganda Peoples Congress has named a 15-member team to lead the country to what the party is calling a “second independence”. The chairman of the party’s Presidential Policy Commission, Dr James Rwanyarare, announced the formation of the team yesterday during the party’s weekly address to journalists in Kampala. Rwanyarare said that the party leader, former President Milton Obote, had appointed a “national organising committee to reactivate party branches throughout the country”. Obote lives in exile in Lusaka, Zambia. The appointment of a new team shows attempts by the opposition UPC to position itself politically as the country heads for a transition back to multiparty politics. Led by Kampala advocate Peter Walubiri, the committee is detailed to re-open UPC branches across the country, update the party members’ roll and recruit new ones before going on to register as required by law. However, Rwanyarare said that UPC, which filed a Constitutional Court suit against what he called “obnoxious sections of [the] Political [Parties and] Organisations Act and other laws”, will not register until that suit is disposed of. “This party registration will of course take place when the courts of law have settled our disputes before them or alternatively, when NRM government has repealed the bad laws they put in place that prevent free competitive multiparty politics, elections and governance in Uganda,” Rwanyarare said. Appointed on September 25, the committee has Mr Henry Mayega, Dr Okulo Epak, Mr Adoko Nekyon and Mr Patrick Mwondha as members. Others are Ms Alice Alaso, Ms Margaret Ateng, Mr Ignatius Barungi, Mr Dick Nyai, Mr Chris Opio and Mr Okello Okello. Mr Ahmed Washaki, Mr Hamza Ssewankambo, Prof. Patrick Rubaihayo and Mr Okot Omodi are the other members. Rwanyarare dropped hints that UPC, which ruled the country twice – from independence to 1971 and from 1981-’85 – might ally with other political organisations to wrestle power from President Yoweri Musveni’s ruling Movement in 2006. “In situations where we have dictatorships like Museveni’s, even if we go multipartyism it won’t help if the Movement monopolises power. We need a coalition government where the Movement excesses can be stopped,” he said. |
© 2003 The Monitor Publications
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