FDC at a crossroads over grassroot polls

The Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) is set to hold party grassroots elections starting today, amid escalating rifts in the party.

In the Wednesday election roadmap issued by the party chief electoral commissioner, Mr Boniface Toterebuka, the village and parish elections will run from today up to July 23.

These will be followed by the sub-county or division elections on July 24 and 25 while constituency elections will be conducted on July 31 and August 1.

The election of district-level leaders is scheduled to run from August 3 to August 6.

“FDC Electoral Commission is pleased to announce the election schedule, we call upon all party members to actively participate in this very important exercise,” Mr Toterebuka noted in the election roadmap.

“We kindly request all party members to follow the FDC election guidelines, provided by the FDC Electoral Commission,” he added.

The elections come at a time when the party’s top leaders are trading counter accusations at each other.

Party spokesperson Ibrahim Ssemujju alongside Mr Erias Lukwago, the party’s vice president for Buganda region, are accusing the party president Patrick Oboi Amuriat and the secretary general, Mr Nandala Mafabi, for accepting money from State House to run the 2021 general polls.

On Wednesday, the founding party president, Dr Kizza Besigye, advised the warring groups to halt the election process in a bid to first resolve the current impasse.

Opposing move

In a related development, a section of legislators belonging to FDC’s Parliamentary caucus yesterday urged its members to shun what they called ‘sham’ village elections that are starting today, stating that they are being organised by the Amuriat-Nandala camp.

Led by Mr Ssemujju (Kira Municipality), the legislators during a press conference at Parliament, warned that there shouldn’t be any party elections until the current stand-off is resolved.

“This particular briefing is to draw the attention of the FDC leaders, members and well-wishers to an illegal exercise that is being announced by the Amuriat-Nandala faction that FDC elections are beginning tomorrow [today],” Mr Ssemujju said.

“As far as we are concerned, there are no elections tomorrow and we want to call upon all the FDC leaders, including newly-trained supervisors to abandon this exercise if they really care for this party until next week’s National Council [meeting] has been held to determine when and how we should go for these elections,” he added.

Mr Ssemujju reasoned that if the elections were left to proceed, members would have instead participated in a National Resistance Movement (NRM)-led exercise.

This follows ongoing claims that Mr Amuriat and Mr Nandala have taken billions of shillings from State House in order to hand over FDC to President Museveni, accusations that they deny.

“You will be electing NRM structures and not the FDC [ones],” he claimed.

Mr Ssemujju was flanked and supported by three other legislators, including Mr Francis Mwijukye (Buhweju County), Mr Namanya Naboth (Rubabo County), and Mr Denis Onekalit Amere (Kitgum Municipality).

Compiled by Peter Sserugo, Esther Oluka & Andrew Kaggwa Odaka

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