KAMPALA – The former Luweero Woman Member of Parliament, Ms Brenda Nabukenya, has announced plans to unseat Mr Norbert Mao as the President of the Democratic Party (DP) come March.
DP is in March expected to choose new party leaders and Ms Nabukenya accused Mr Mao of selling the party to the ruling National Resistance Movement.
“We must resist the wrong tendencies of massaging this dictatorial government and it’s at this moment that I declare to run for the president of Democratic Party to restore a credible leadership, have accountable leadership and to revamp the DP brand,” she told journalists in Kampala on Friday, January 31.
The country’s oldest political party has recently been unable to field it’s own presidential candidate in the last national elections. In 2016, they chose to support former prime minister Amama Mbabazi for president.
“Mao’s inward focus of leadership is to maintain the status quo yet there’s countrywide outcry for power transition, “Ms Nabukenya said.
She added that DP under Mr Mao hasn’t offered good leadership to liberate it from state capture.
“The party now lacks respect for our basic principles like truth, justice and equality among others. We need to act more to make our party worthy of principals upon which it was formed,” Ms Nabukenya said.
DP is now in bed with the People Power movement led by Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine. But Ms Nabukenya said that she will continue promoting this alliance so as to take power from NRM.
When contacted, Mr Mao said Nabukenya was free to contest against him as part of the party’s internal democracy.
The announcement comes as the party continues to contend with infighting among different camps. On Thursday, the party announced that they were postponing it’s grassroots elections across the country, citing planned rigging and infiltration of non-party members in the voter’s register.
