FDC leaders hit back at Muntu

Kampala. Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) leaders have hit back at former party president, Maj Gen Mugisha Muntu, over remarks that he thanks God for not having blessed his quest to retain the party presidency. Gen Muntu had also said the party is torn by contradictions and factionalism over what strategy to use to cause regime change in the country.
But FDC party national chairperson Wasswa Biriggwa yesterday told Saturday Monitor that the party leadership was not concerned with Gen Muntu’s comments since no one knows whether he had a “revelation” from God.

“Gen Muntu thanking God for his loss in an election may be hard to understand; who knows, he might have got a revelation from God. We are not yet aware of that revelation and we will wait for him to tell us what it is,” Mr Biriggwa said on phone yesterday.
He said FDC is not bothered by Gen Muntu’s countrywide consultations because he is not a leader in FDC at the moment and nobody can stop him from holding meetings as an individual.
Sitting party president Patrick Amuriat Oboi said he is yet to understand what his predecessor meant by thanking God for failing to return to Najjanankumbi, the seat of the party headquarters on the Kampala-Entebbe highway.

“I don’t know what he [Gen Muntu] meant by that statement because I was not there. In this case, it should have been the sitting president complaining about controversies in the party,” Mr Amuriat said.
Speaking in Fort Portal Town, Kabarole District, during his second consultative meeting on Tuesday, Gen Muntu said: “I thank God I did not become the party president again because it is full of contradictions. In my five-year term of office as party president, we were locked in contradictions instead of building party structures.”

Gen Muntu lost the hotly contested elections as FDC party president to former Kumi County MP Amuriat in November last year. Mr Moses Byamugisha and Mr Malcolm Matsiko were the other candidates in the race.
Shortly after the election, Gen Muntu, who has been championing the ideology of building party structures instead of the move to capture state power through defiance, announced he would carry out countrywide consultations to inform his next cause of action.

While in Fort Portal and Hoima towns this week, Gen Muntu said FDC is split between the two approaches of defiance and building party structures.
Mr Amuriat said he would wait for talks with Gen Muntu after his consultations so that the party leaders are made to understand the contradictions between the two ideologies of building party structures and defiance.

The main Opposition party has in the recent years been split between two forces, with one group believing in founding party president Dr Kiiza Besigye’s ideology of seeking regime change through defiance and the other under Gen Muntu believing that ousting the ruling National Resistance Movement would require building strong party structures from the grassroots level.

Before Gen Muntu kicked off his countrywide consultations early this week, the party’s secretary general, Mr Nandala Mafabi, issued a letter directing FDC leaders at district level not to allow activities that are not endorsed by the top leadership.

Mr Mafabi, who is also the MP for Budadiri West, declined to discuss the matter with Saturday Monitor, saying he had a busy schedule and was out of the country.

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