DP activates structures in 44 districts

Democratic Party members hold placards after the press conference at their party headquarters in Kampala yesterday as a way of showing solidarity to the teachers who were on strike.
PHOTO BY MICHAEL KAKUMIRIZI

What you need to know:

The party press secretary said they have set up structures in 40 per cent of the country.

Kampala. The Democratic Party (DP) has activated grassroots structures in 44 out of 112 districts in the country, officials said yesterday.
The party is conducting grassroots elections for its branch leaders in an exercise that began last month and ends on May 31.
DP press secretary Fred Mwesigwa said the party is now well grounded in 40 per cent of the districts in the country.
“We are still re-doing the structures in all districts across the country but we still have to first finish the grassroots elections because some structures existed but were very weak,” Mr Mwesigwa said.
He appealed to all members to follow the party constitution basing on the party’s motto of truth and justice, while carrying out elections in the remaining days. In some districts such as Masaka, the election of party leaders was marred by violence.
During grassroots elections in Masaka, Entebbe, Bukomansimbi and some parts of Wakiso District, disagreements degenerated into fist fights and cancellation of results.
There were complaints of bribery, abrupt changes of polling centres, transportation of voters, voting by non-party members and factions pushing for particular candidates.
“We constituted a committee to handle all the grievances in the ongoing grassroot elections and we don’t expect any query towards our delegates’ conference,” Mr Mwesigwa added.
He also said the party is updating its members’ register in all districts to ensure that those who are dormant or quit the party for other political groupings are eliminated.
Recently DP instituted a committee to dispose of all pending election petitions that arose during the party grassroots elections.
The committee, which is chaired by Mr Zachary Olumu, comprises senior party elders including Mr Polly Mukiibi, Mr Henry Bazira Ssewanyana, and Mr Baite Munobwa.