LOP decries infighting among parties

Kampala. The Leader of Opposition in Parliament, Ms Betty Aol Ochan, yesterday decried the infighting among opposition actors as she launched an outreach to charm peers in the struggle to remove President Museveni from power.
“We are to continually build opposition instead of destroying it,” she said during a visit to Uganda House for her maiden call on Mr Jimmy Akena, the head of a faction of Uganda Peoples Congress Party that has ruled Uganda twice.
She added: “Come 2021 (when the next general election are expected), I do not want to see any opposition party [thinking] that it is destroying itself instead of [knowing that] it is destroying the entire opposition.”
All major opposition political parties --- UPC, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), and the Democratic Party (DP) --- are each embroiled in internal feuding.
The stresses in FDC on Tuesday culminated in the party’s immediate past president, Maj Gen Mugisha Muntu, announcing that he and other senior members were quitting.
They are expected to address a press conference today to announce their next course of action, which could include unveiling a new political party.
Ms Ochan, a Gulu Municipality Member of Parliament elected on FDC ticket, yesterday said the divisions “will not take opposition anywhere”.
“Sometimes we have to bury our difference and focus on the main things which have brought us to Parliament and leadership,” she said.
Meeting different opposition parties is one of her strategies to bring the opposition to work together.
The LoP’s visit happened a day after Muntu’s faction, accused by sections of FDC members of having been moles for the ruling National Resistance Movement, quit.
In yesterday’s meeting, host Akena, also Lira Municipality MP, told the LoP that intra and inter-party differences should be resolved through the Inter-Party Organisation for Dialogue (Ipod).
Ipod is a donor-supported platform that brings together all political actors with representation in Parliament to address issues of mutual concern.
“Today in politics of Uganda there is a lot of intolerance, we have seen it on the floor of Parliament and in other areas, we must transcend this issue because all Ugandans have right to the political space available,” he said.