Kabuleta unveils new political party

Former presidential candidate Joseph Kabuleta has launched a new political party whose objective is to empower Ugandans economically.

The party, with a symbol of maize, is called the National Economic Empowerment Dialogue (NEED).

“We launched NEED as a political organisation, a vehicle that would carry an ideology around which all Ugandans can coalesce as we transition from dictatorship to democracy. We chose economic empowerment as our creed because it is the true form of empowerment,” Mr Kabuleta said on Monday.

He added: “On average, winners at parliamentary level get 30 to 35 percent of the overall votes; and the other 65 to 70 percent goes to losers... Therefore, there’s a need to harness those wonderful ideas from the runners-up by offering them a platform to express them.” 

Mr Kabuleta said they would focus on holding conversations that will change the political dynamics of the country.

“The people who have held us captive for three-and-a half decades seek to control not just our wealth, but also our conversation. They have the machinery to control the former, but we must never let them dominate the narrative,” he said.

Mr Kabuleta, a former sports journalist-turned-politician, also said Uganda’s politics is built on personality cults and that his party will change the narrative by creating a dominant ideology.

“If we stay in the politics of personality, there’s no guarantee that we shall not replace Museveni with Museveni. In the next political dispensation, we want the issue of economic empowerment to be at the forefront,” Mr Kabuleta said.

As of September 2020, the Uganda Electoral Commission listed 26 registered political parties on its website.  With the launching of NEED, it now brings the total number of political parties to 27

Some of the listed parties include ANT, AP, COSEVO, CP, DP, EPU, FDC, FIL, JEEMA, LDT, NRM, NUP, PDP, PPP, RPP, RWYP, SDP, UEP, UPC and UPM.

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