|
The resignation of the second vice chairman of the National Resistance Movement, Jaberi Bidandi Ssali, is the price of taking an independent stance with an increasingly intolerant party.
Inside sources tell The Monitor that a clique of political operators close to President Yoweri Museveni were plotting to humiliate Bidandi by dismissing him for the position of vice chairman, and membership of the party all together.
According to inside sources, Bidandi was to be dismissed next week.
“He has jumped before he could be pushed,” a highly placed NRM insider intimated to The Monitor, “Bidandi had been fired from cabinet before he resigned on this same position. He did not want history to repeat itself this time round.”
Last Monday, the clique around President Museveni within the NRM sponsored Moroto Municipality MP Sammy Loote to move a vote of no confidence motion in Bidandi as second chairman of the
NRM. But the motion caused murmurs of disapproval from the assembled delegates prompting President Museveni to stop it.
Bidandi had circulated a document to the conference in which he criticised the President who is also chairman of the NRM. Bidandi’s document also accused “a clique” around the President of using money to bribe Members of Parliament (MPs) to support a third term for Museveni. Bidandi was forced to withdraw this latter claim.
However, under President Museveni’s personal charge, the meeting wanted to punish Bidandi but could not do so because the NRM had not formed a disciplinary committee.
Museveni’s handlers had already written a resolution to form a disciplinary committee to “take care” of errant members like Bidandi.
According to an NRM insider, on Wednesday (the day Bidandi resigned) the NRM called a meeting whose purpose was to form the disciplinary committee. According to this source, Bidandi was invited but he did not attend.<
BR>Sources close to Bidandi’s confirmed to The Monitor that the veteran politician received the invitation but stayed away.
The source said that after consultations, Bidandi smelt that the meeting was meant to squeeze him into a corner.
Sources close to Bidandi told The Monitor that if he had attended the meeting in his capacity as second vice chairman, he would have presided over the selection of members of the disciplinary committee, who were being chosen to punish him and would therefore have been bound by the decision of the meeting.
However, since Bidandi would have been outnumbered among the members of the interim executive committee who were supposed to select the disciplinary committee, the committee would have been overwhelmingly composed of those who would want to humiliate him.
From this perspective, Bidandi resigned because he saw the clouds settling on his head. But there is another reason: last year,
President Museveni sacked Bidandi f
rom cabinet after the veteran politician took a strong stance against amending the constitution to remove term limits on the president otherwise called Ekiasanja.
Bidandi’s subsequent criticisms of the way the Movement and President Museveni were running the country were construed by some as sour grapes over loss of his ministerial job. Sources say Bidandi resigned early to avoid the humiliating of being voted out of his job, and also of retaining the credibility to criticise the NRM without being accused to being disgruntled over dismissal.
Bidandi yesterday told The Monitor that he will remain a “sort of back bencher within the NRM and also as a member of the interim executive committee.”
Bidandi further said that by a resolution of the party, any member who is a promoter is automatically a member of the interim executive committee.
Bidandi has been weary of the way things are being handled by the inner executive of the NRM. Regarding the Shs 5m bribe
NRM has been dishing out to members of parliament to buy their support for third term, Bidandi told a friend recently that “there is no way I can stand before people and say this money belongs to the NRM. That would be deceit. At no time did we as a party discuss this money.”
Further, sources inside the NRM told The Monitor that during the party meeting last week on Monday, the Prime Minister, Prof. Apolo Nsibambi, told the president that members had been “talking about facilitation” for the third term.
However, the source said Museveni was silent and did not answer the concern raised by his prime minister.
“Poor Nsibambi,” the source said, “did not know that the money had already been arranged and was going to be distributed by a state minister close to the President using MPs whom he often uses to do the dirty work.”
Although the state minister responsible for this scam is known, his name remains withheld for obvious reasons.
|
