All set for Watongola, Musumba showdown

Tomorrow evening the curtain comes down on the campaigns ahead of Wednesday’s elections for the Kamuli Municipality parliamentary seat.
Five people, including flag bearers of both the ruling NRM and Opposition party FDC along with three Independent candidates, have been out traversing the municipality as they bid to rewrite the political history of this nascent constituency.
The candidates are Ms Rehema Watongola (NRM), Ms Salaamu Musumba (FDC), Ms Proscovia Naikoba, Mr Samuel Walujjo and Mr Michael Kiboome. Ms Naikoba has leanings towards FDC while Walujjo and Kiboome have leanings towards the NRM.
The campaign has been dominated by questions around the status of the academic credentials of the NRM candidate. Despite having won the constituency’s maiden elections, she was dragged to court by her main challenger, Ms Musumba, for lack of requisite academic qualifications. Both the High Court in Jinja and later the Court of Appeal agreed with Ms Musumba and ordered fresh elections.
Ms Watongola did present a new set of academic papers and got duly nominated, but a shadow still hangs over the new set of academic papers.
“Since they are going to throw her out again, I will wait and do serious things than waste my vote for Hajat [Watongola] yet they will throw her out on technicalities,” Majid Bagonza a voter at Industrial Area said.
Little wonder that wherever she has gone to campaign, Ms Watongola has been forced to commit considerable time on trying to reassure voters that voting her will not be an exercise in futility. She has been flashing an identity card and copies of an A-Level pass-slip as proof that she did go back to school.
However, if Ms Watongola has anything she is fighting for, Ms Musumba, has much more to fight for.
Ms Musumba has contested in nine different elections in the last 23 years. The first go was during the March 1994 Constituent Assembly elections, which she lost to Albert Brewer Abaliwano. She did bounce back to win the 1996 and the 2001 Bugabula South parliamentary elections. Both wins were, however, before the political space was opened up to allow for a return to multiparty politics.
She lost the seat to Mr Asuman Kiyingi during the 2006 elections, lost the 2008 by-elections battle for the district’s LC5 seat to Ambassador Stephen Mubiru, before once again losing to Mr Asuman Kiyingi during the 2011 parliamentary elections.
In 2012, Ms Musumba managed to win the by-elections that were called after Mugaino was ejected from office, but that victory was the result of under the table dealings that saw her ally with powerful local NRM honchos, including Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga, who opted to support her instead of the NRM’s candidate, Mr Thomas Franz Kategere.
So cast in stone was the decision to support her that the then LC3 chairman of Namisagali Sub-county, Mr Moses Masooma, told the party chairman not to waste his time campaigning for Mr Kategere.
The marriage of convenience, however, did not last for long. Ms Musumba soon fell out with civil servants and NRM leaders, including Ms Kadaga, which culminated in Ms Kadaga publicly rebuking her at a public function in Buyende in March 2015 and advising her to go slow on public servants saying they had been instrumental in propelling her to victory.

Bad blood
That sparked off bad blood between the two women and it partially explains why Ms Musumba at one point picked several sets of nominations forms before declaring her intention to contest for the Kamuli District seat, which Ms Kadaga has held since the days of the National Resistance Council.
Why she eventually backtracked and opted for the Kamuli Municipality seat is hard to tell.
The challenge now for Musumba is to prove that she can win an election in her own right and without the support of Ms Kadaga and her team.
Besides having to deal with an enemy within in the form of her former protégé, Ms Proscovia Naikoba, from whom she is accusing of having stolen the FDC flag, which has since divided the party’s supporters, Ms Musumba is accused of having attempted to sabotage the creation of Kamuli Municipality.
“It is on record that Ms Musumba did not sign any papers in support of our request for municipality status. Why then does she want to be its MP?” the mayor, Mr David Musasizi, asked at a recent rally while canvassing for support for Ms Watongola.
Musumba, however, hit back saying it was because of her initial refusal that the municipality was widened.
“Myopic leaders did not see a big municipality and had excluded the Kyabazinga. But as an urban planner I said no, the municipality should be for the next 100 years and expanded. It is a matter of principle, not sentiments,” she argues.
The biggest impediment to Musumba’s success is Ms Naikoba, who has been receiving sympathy for the manner in which FDC brushed her aside and opted to handover the party flag to Ms Musumba.
Ms Naikoba, who contested against Ms Kadaga in 2006 and 2011 has been urging the constituents not to vote both Watongola and Musumba in order to allow a new breed of leaders to emerge.
The other two candidates are Michael Kiboome, who holds a degree in Public Administration and Mr Samuel Walujjo, who has formally worked as an Accountant with Kamuli District Administration.
They are dark horses in the race, but they just might be a factor in a race that will determine whether or not Ms Musumba remains politically relevant.

About the race

The candidates are Rehema Watongola (NRM), Ms Salaamu Musumba (FDC), Ms Proscovia Naikoba, Mr Samuel Walujjo and Mr Michael Kiboome. Ms Naikoba has leanings towards FDC while Walujjo and Kiboome have leanings towards the NRM.
The campaign has been dominated by questions around the status of the academic credentials of the NRM candidate. Despite having won the constituency’s maiden elections, she was dragged to court by her main challenger, Ms Musumba, for lack of requisite academic qualifications.
Both the High Court in Jinja and later the Court of Appeal agreed with Ms Musumba and ordered fresh elections.