FDC concedes, endorses Kawalya for KCCA speaker

Opposition party, Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party, has conceded defeat in the speakership elections and endorsed Mr Abubaker Kawalya, claiming him a card-holding member of the FDC.

While addressing journalists yesterday at the party headquarters, FDC deputy spokesperson John Kikonyogo congratulated Kawalya.
He said: “As FDC, we recognise the internal processes and elections were open and the process which we watched were transparent and fair.”
Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) officials conducted the elections on Thursday last week.

The speaker presides over council meetings, a duty that was executed by the lord mayor under the old law.
Mr Kawalya contested for the speakership position as an independent candidate and emerged winner after he garnered 17 votes, beating FDC’s Ms Doreen Nyanjura, who fetched 14 votes and Mr Muhammed Segirinya, who got one vote.

However, Mr Kikonyogo said: “Kawalya is an FDC card holding member despite the fact that some people were rushing to congratulate him more than ourselves, the party which identified him when he was still in university. We groomed him.”
He invited all members that defected from the party to get back.

“We are going to sit as a party so that we move in the same direction. There are those who went to ANT [Alliance for National Transformation] as a party, they have their party. Some of them if they want to return, they are free to return, if they want to stay in their party, that’s democracy and we are fighting for exactly that,” Mr Kikonyogo said.

No party cohesion?
Mr Kawalya’s victory to speakership position has since left FDC officials trading mixed positions on what would be done to him for opposing party position and contesting as an independent candidate.
Mr Kikonyogo said Mr Kawalya’s issue was a small matter, adding that the party would resolve it alongside other members that acted contrary to party position.

“They [Kawalya and others] have to come to the headquarters not for punishment per se but to have to find a way of handling it ourselves internally…that (disciplinary action) will come later if the reconciliation has failed, but has it failed?” Mr Kikonyogo stated.

This was contrary to what his boss, Mr Ssemujju Nganda, said in the aftermath of the elections.

“My advice to Kawalya now is to go to Najjanankumbi and seek forgiveness from his party [FDC], if he is still a member of the FDC. If he does not do that, he will create a wedge between him and his party and that will affect his political fortune,” Mr Ssemujju stressed last week.

Mr Ssemujju’s position followed what the FDC secretary general, Mr Nandala Mafabi, said as the party unveiled Ms Nyanjura to run as FDC flag bearer in the same elections.

“All our councillors are property of the party. Anybody who goes against it (party’s nominated candidates) will be dealt with according to the constitution of the party,” Mr Nandala said.

Last week Mr Kawalya appeared on NTV saying he would not apologise. “They [FDC] shouldn’t expect me to go and apologise and I don’t want them to apologise to me. What we need is to focus and move forward. So, whoever thinks that I am going to apologise to the party is misplaced and I am not going to do that,” Mr Kawalya said.

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