Mbabazi will serve only one term - Mao
Norbert Mao (C), UPC party president Olara Otunnu ( L) and Gulu Municipality MP candidate Lyandro Komakech address a press conference in Gulu Town lastTuesday. Photo by Julius ocungi.
Gulu- Democratic Party President Norbert Mao, claiming to speak on behalf of the failed Opposition coalition, The Democratic Alliance (TDA), yesterday said independent presidential candidate Amama Mbabazi will serve one five-year term when elected president later this month.
Members of Mr Mbabazi’s campaign team have persisted in calling themselves TDA despite a statement by the Bishop Zac Niringiye, the head of the TDA secretariat, that none of the people who were party to the alliance may refer to themselves as TDA because the proposed alliance failed to reach consensus on a joint candidate.
Negotiations on a possible joint candidate collapsed late September last year after a stalemate between Mr Mbabazi and Dr Kizza Besigye, the Forum for Democratic Change candidate, on who of them would carry the Opposition flag although a section of majority TDA had endorsed Mr Mbabazi as its flagbearer in the 2016 presidential elections.
Mr Mao, speaking in Gulu last Tuesday, continued to drive the TDA line, purporting to name people he called TDA parliamentary contestants and claiming that there would be “no way Mr Mbabazi would go beyond one term since TDA principles are clear on the formation of transitional government of national unity.”
“Whatever we are working on now is based on the TDA protocol that calls for transitional government. It is through this that we are laying our foundation for leadership takeover.
So we are assuring Ugandans that he (Mr Mbabazi) will strictly serve for five years only,” Mr Mao said.
After the collapse of TDA, Mr Mbabazi, under his pressure group “Go Forward” and his backers, including Mr Mao’s DP, Mr Olara Otunnu’s UPC and other smaller political groupings, took up the name TDA despite protests by Dr Besigye and his backers.
In Gulu, Mr Mao was joined by Mr Otunnu, among others, to unveil a 26-page protocol they said belong to TDA.
Mr Mao said the “TDA transitional government” will be akin to that of late South African President Mandela’s African National Congress that still is still in power.
“In Uganda, we are used to leaders who are unprincipled, people who shift goal posts. But that impunity is because they don’t pay a price.
If Ugandans had stood up against President Museveni’s long stay in power, his government would be no more,” said Mr Mao.
Mr Mbabazi campaigns in Kitgum and Lamwo districts tomorrow.
