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By Mulengera Reporters
DP Vice President Mukasa Mbidde on Thursday addressed reporters at his law firm offices in Zzana along Entebbe Road. This was purposed to give his views on his party president Norbert Mao, with whom they aren’t on talking terms anymore (the detailed video recording of the Mukasa Mbidde address can be accessed via this link
Mbidde illustrated what has gone wrong generally in DP and the ways in which Mao has personally let down the party, and declared it was time for him to go so that someone better becomes party president.
He said Mao had become self-centered and preoccupied with his selfish desires to personally hold onto a government job, while totally becoming mute on other provisions of the DP-NRM cooperation agreement which were meant to benefit DP as a party and Uganda as a country.
He said beyond Mao’s Ministerial offer, the agreement was meant to result into several other positions coming to DP on top of the same becoming the basis for the Constitutional & Justice Ministry to originate reforms on the Constitution and the management of elections in Uganda. He also spoke about the respect, protection and preservation of citizens’ rights whose championing he said had for years made DP popular with the Ugandan masses.
Making it clear he wasn’t regretting disregarding advice from fellow DPs who never wanted him to undress Mao at a news conference, Mbidde said the party President had also breached the spirit of the same agreement by running against Anita Among, whose speakership reelection bid he said he and SG Siranda had backed in the spirit of the same agreement since her candidature had originally been sponsored by the ruling party’s CEC.
He also castigated Mao for presiding over a leadership that is not consultative, something he said had alienated many party stalwarts away from Mao and generally DP. He accused Mao of being preoccupied with holding onto his own Ministerial job inside the Museveni government. He also accused Mao of overlooking the need to adequately explain the contents, meaning and the spirit of the cooperation agreement.
He claimed that people like himself found it hard to win their MP races in the just ended elections because of the dilemma which the agreement’s ambiguous terms imposed on them. He said people in the mainstream opposition shunned them saying they aren’t part of them yet even NRM had no clear program to accommodate them.
He said they didn’t only face strong and well facilitated opponents from NRM but state agents were also deployed and unleashed to tilt the political ground or terrain against them through a multiplicity of tactics including outright vote rigging and results’ falsification. Apparently, many DP candidates believed that the cooperation agreement would shield them against such injustices to which the opposition has been subjected for decades. He castigated Mao for becoming complacent and satisfied with leading a party which has just 6 MPs all coming from one district.
Mbidde also faulted Mao for becoming petty and going personal on Anita Among whose acquisition of the much-publicized Rolls Royce, he said, wasn’t as scandalous as Mao portrayed it. He said he is old enough to know and understand that what cost Anita Among Gen Museveni’s favor was something much bigger than just this vehicle acquisition-related ostentation. Mbidde also revealed that he didn’t have much history of working with Anita whose friendship with him he clarified had started and ended with her Speakership reelection bid.
Mbidde said many DPs had become demoralized to the point of descending into WhatsApp warriors because Mao’s uninspiring leadership had left them with no option but to do exactly that. He also castigated Mao, who was reappointed Justice Minister by Museveni on Tuesday, of becoming proud and insensitive to the extent of belittlingly branding DP leaders ‘verandah politicians’ simply because they didn’t win their MP races last January.
Mbidde said that that characterization by Mao, who partly contributed to their current political predicament, had angered many DPs who had agreed to come together and begin to prepare for his political funeral since they aren’t prepared to continue living under his leadership. He said there are lots of DPs who still love the party but aren’t prepared to participate in its rejuvenation activities for as long as Mao remains at its helm.
Gratefully, Mbidde said Mao had already bid farewell to the DPs during the delegates conference last year in Mbarara where he unequivocally stated that this was going to be his last term. He said whereas the DP constitution has no term limits, he expects Mao, who he said he has known for the last more than 20 years, to stick to his promise and quit without seeking reelection when his time comes. He said not doing so will amount to breaching the party’s own motto of truth and justice.
Mbidde also registered his regret to have trusted Mao for all these years, only for the man from Gulu to pay back by ruining the DP brand while serving his personal interests. He said he is ready to back anyone else as long as that person isn’t Mao, for the next DP President. He clarified if nobody shows up, he personally will be more than prepared to stand up to be counted.
He ran through the things he has done for DP since his days at Makerere and asserted he has never meandered to be in any other party. Mao has previously been accused of leaving DP for Aggrey Awori’s party at some point and by flagging his personal record of consistently being DP, Mbidde was veiledly digging in at Mao. Mbidde says he is now wiser and there is no way he can endorse Mao for anything again. He appealed to big-name DPs who had left protesting Mao’s leadership to come back home, making it clear he will be prepared to be led.
Mbidde likened what he termed Mao’s dictatorship to Milton Obote’s against which Gen Museveni declared the NRA bush war in February 1981. Mbidde said he was aware the war he was proclaiming against the Mao dictatorship in DP won’t be easy but it’s worth the risk.
He said he expects Mao to abuse them and deploy all the dirty tactics in his tools kit but he in the end will be overwhelmed and pushed to accept defeat. He clarified that they have calculated the war will last the next four years and it will end in the total obliteration of Mao.
They intend to launch a countrywide and stage a series of rallies and town hall meetings during which dispirited party members will be consulted for their views on how the anti-Mao fight has to be conducted. As if to frighten Mao into early abdication of the DP throne, Mbidde referenced to his personal record of always being unopposed in DP internal elections each time he targeted a leadership position.
He clarified that time had come to revamp the glory of the party which, in its hey days, dominated elective politics in the Greater Kampala Metropolitan region which he said is home to more than enough votes one needs to overwhelm Gen Museveni’s vote-rigging machine and get declared President. He said there was need to re-energize the broader opposition cause whose overall regime change goal can only be realized after parties like DP have been rescued and liberated from Mao-like dictatorship.
Mbidde said that during the four year DP-pacification war he had launched, ‘it’s the bastards’ and not good people like himself, who must die because they are indeed traitors who deserve to die.
He also described DP as a party of their great grandparents which they aren’t prepared to just walk away from to allow Mao leeway to annihilate and have it buried once and for all. He made it clear there was urgent need for all DP lovers to coalesce around his cause and force out ‘dictator’ Mao before it gets too late. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
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