Anita Among seeks to uproot Kadaga from NRM top seat
Newly elected Speaker of Parliament Anita Among honours former Speaker Rebecca Kadaga upon her election on March 25, 2022. PHOTO/ FILE
What you need to know:
- The Speaker of Parliament, Ms Annet Anita Among, has thrown her hat in the ring and wants the seat of the first deputy Premier and East African Community Minister, Rebecca Alitwala Kadaga,
when the race for NRM national vice chairperson - female - comes around the corner.
The Speaker of Parliament, Annet Anita Among, has thrown down the gauntlet to her predecessor, the first deputy Premier and East African Community (EAC) minister, Ms Rebecca Alitwala Kadaga.
Ms Among yesterday announced that she intends to contest for the position of second deputy National Resistance Movement (NRM) vice-chairperson in 2025 currently held by Ms Kadaga, who previously served as the first female Speaker of Parliament.
The position is third in the hierarchy of the ruling party politburo, which is led by President Museveni who doubles as party chairperson and deputised by Mr Moses Kigongo. It also entitles the holder to sit on the coveted Central Executive Committee (CEC), the second-highest organ of the NRM party. Among the roles of CEC is to provide and exercise political leadership in the country; formulate policy for consideration by the National Executive Council; supervise the day-to-day conduct of the organisation’s activities; appoint organisational functionaries from amongst members of NRM and propagate the NRM policies.
In 2020, Ms Kadaga, also the woman MP for Kamuli District, trounced the current State minister for Housing, Ms Persis Namuganza, after the former garnered 6,776 votes against the latter's 4,943 to retain her position.
Ms Kadaga was first elected to the position in 2005 during NRM primaries held at Namboole Stadium, Wakiso District, after the former Gender and Labour minister, Ms Zoe Bakoku Bakoru, and the former State minister for Teso Affairs, Ms Christine Amongin Aporu, stood down in her favour.
Ms Among’s announcement came at the tail-end of her meeting with the Uganda Urban Council Speakers Association in the Speaker’s boardroom at Parliament. The Association had earlier tabled a petition seeking an improvement in their welfare.
The Chairperson of the association, Mr Bonny Tashobya, implored the Speaker to contest for the seat of NRM vice-chairperson for the eastern region currently held by the former Junior Health minister, Mr Mike Mukula.
“As speakers, our wish is to support you everywhere and we are requesting you to come as the National vice-chairperson Eastern [region],” Mr Tashobya told Speaker Among.
Ms Among replied: “I am not standing for the position of vice Eastern region. I am going to stand for national vice-chairperson, Female. It is the one I am standing for. I am for the whole country, not only for the eastern region.”
Ms Kadaga’s phone went unanswered when we tried to seek a comment from her.
The NRM Director for communications, Mr Emmanuel Dombo revealed that: “The [CEC] elections will take place and that will be early next year on a date that will be determined by the CEC. Right now we have our teams in the 18 zones of the country digitising the register. They are capturing the data from the manual manuscript into the digitised format. We hope that this exercise is going to take not more than three weeks, so by the end of December, we hope that we shall have the digital register. We should have a fully functional register early next year and the CEC will convene to give directives on what is likely to follow.”
Implacable adversaries
On March 16, 2024, Speaker Among at two separate rallies in the districts of Bukedea and Buyende alleged that the Parliament exhibition on the microblogging site X, which exposed dubious expenditures worth billions of shillings spent by the Legislature was the handiwork of those seeking “to reclaim their seat as Speaker.” She did not provide any evidence to support her claims. “The people who are fighting me. The God I serve will fight back.There are people who are saying [that] they want to reclaim their seat as Speakers. They want to reclaim the seat of a Speaker. What did they leave there? What have we done?” Ms Among said as she addressed Bukedea residents at Apopong Primary School on March 16, 2024.
During another address nearly four hours later in Buyende District, Ms Among fired another veiled salvo at Ms Kadaga.
“Somebody was a speaker for 20 years. What did she do for you people? We want to tell you that the people who are fighting us are fighting you. And it is high time we chase away those old women. Send away those old women because they want to cause us problems. They want us [here in Buyende] to remain poor whereas for them in Kamuli [continue to] get developed.”
Ms Kadaga has remained conspicuously silent and has not responded to the attacks.
