SV: {UAH} Can DP rise again and have a fighting chance in 2016?

Mw. TIMAPULA,

FIRST, please, stick to real issue first, but you should know that politics is collective responsibility but not this animal call - Individual merits - aka - for myself, which had been brought by the NRA/M7ism.

SECOND, tell your anarchists brothers and sisters such as Mky Nambooze and, or Lukwago with Lubega to stand behind MAO rather than continuing to follow that political route of ethnic cleansing - or ethnic majority syndrome!

For you to say MAO should raise the DP alone is this silly thing or word of contempt to the Delegate Conference which elected MAO to lead this party.

LASTLY, I told you and I am still telling you that politics is collective responsibility as a way forward. That was what brought the late KIWANUKA Ben to be a nationalist not a separatist. He had his commanders from the whole corner of Uganda. Both your Lukwago and Nambooze do think Kampala and Mukono is Uganda hence they cannot work with MAO. This is what you are telling me. Please keep your mouth shut if you cannot see beyond your very nose!

                                                                        

Ocaya pOcure - From Pader District Acoliland!

Den måndag, 3 mars 2014 3:04 skrev Yahoo! Merber Service. <ghkkolokolo@yahoo.fr>:

Yes indeed, DP has already risen again and has all chances to sweep 2016! This has been again
proved at Ggaba Beach where the party succeeded a formidable get together uniting all members
to open the celebrations to mark its 60 years of existence! Every influential party member was there
to surround Hon Mr Norbert Mao and his very powerful executive!! Super excellent show!

What's DP? Unlike other parties this is a real political party that has capacity to expand

through its well known ability to produce leaders and tough fearless militants. All other parties

are just mere parasites feeding on what DP has produced. Recall all those numbers who have gone

to other parties and see whether those other paries can continue to exist! Yet DP inspite of harrasment,

torture and murder of its eminent members has continued to be a real force to fear and worry about!

The status of DP now isn't at all something to be looked at negatively! It's a positive momentum that has impressed in political dynamism. We have Hon Norbert Mao as a very sensible politician ready to reconcile the party and have it move on all fronts. Look at the wonderful programmes the party initiates for its rejuvenation. Consider the devoted executive and how through thin and thick it has enabled the party to win several excellent attainments. And yet the party is penniless and is always undermined from many angles!

Mao and his very wonderful team are spotless and are doing their work without any blemish!
The events at Ggaba last evening were a very good curtain raiser that will very strongly announce doom to the ruling party. Unity is in the offing and it was good to see persons like Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago, Hon Betty Nnambooze, etc.. stand side by side with legendary historicals like Hon P.K.Ssemogerere, etc and all around the party's leader Norbert Mao! This is indeed what Uganda wants and I thank DP for having stood by this principle of party unity that will indeed signify much for the opposition. And I thank DP for having pâssed an invitation to other opposition leader in addition to key minds like Prof Kanyeihamba whose words of wisdom are relevant to the political Uganda of today!
Ggaba has shown us the opposition platform that will be hard to beat come 2016. DP alone with its team of notables ranging from Mao, Ssemo, Ssebaana,  Lukwago, Nnambooze, Brenda Nnabukenya, Mathias Nsubuga, Dr Lulume, Mike Mabikke, Latif Ssebaggala, a reconciled Kakande, and all party stalwarts from all over the country, has enough capacity force and energy to play a key role in leading the opposition to victory. We pray that this platform doesn't crumble but continues to shine as a shield that will augur victory.!
Go forward DP! Forget any differences at hand and act as one single individual concern for the political salvation of the nation. We give our utter moral support to the committee that was designed to ensure the return of our colleagues who have been misled into joining other political forces. The job is complicated but will help DP score high. We've seen the presence of Nasser Ssebaggala at Ggaba and we wish he declares his return to mother DP which once helped him achieve global fame. Come on, come on all our brothers and sisters who left the party for one reason or another! Your party will accept you back!!!
And come on all Ugandans! Join in the party's national celebrations and quickly acquire a party card for a party that was born to stay! DP Egumire! And nobody will ever kill it because it's too strong to die! Other so called mighty parties are now on a death roll but not DP!
Very sincere wishes to all Ugandans for DP's sixty exemplary years of wonderful political existence!
Long live DP, the party Uganda adores most!

Dr G.H. Kkolokolo  (Paris / France )

Le Dimanche 2 mars 2014 1h23, Allan <barigye.rugos@gmail.com> a écrit :

Dead Party

Sent from my LG G2. 4G Android smartphone device.

On Mar 1, 2014 4:14 PM, "Ocen Nekyon" <ocennekyon@gmail.com> wrote:

http://www.monitor.co.ug/Magazines/PeoplePower/Can-DP-rise-again-and-have-a-fighting-chance-in-2016-/-/689844/2226830/-/item/2/-/4xa3gqz/-/index.html

By  Eriasa Mukiibi Sserunjogi

Posted  Sunday, March 2  2014 at  02:00

In Summary

Celebrations launched yesterday to mark 60 years of DP will continue through most of the year and reach a climax on October 6. DP president general says the party leadership will take the opportunity to revitalise the party nationally, writes Eriasa Mukiibi Sserunjogi

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The Democratic Party (DP) yesterday launched celebrations of the 60 years of the party's existence at the Resort Beach Hotel in Ggaba, Kampala.

The choice of date for the launch of the celebrations was dictated by a lone happening 53 years ago, on March 1, 1961, when the then DP president-general, Ben Kiwanuka, became chief minister of Uganda, having won the first national elections which Buganda Kingdom boycotted.
Kiwanuka, however, lost the April 1962 elections to Milton Obote's Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC), which had allied with Buganda Kingdom's Kabaka Yekka, missing out on the opportunity to form the first independence government.

Since then, the only real opportunity for DP under Paul Ssemogerere to take over government was after the disputed 1980 elections, which had the Obote-led UPC declared the winner.

Ssemogerere only managed 21 per cent of the votes when he stood again in 1996 as the Inter-Political Forces Cooperation (IPFC) candidate in the first direct presidential election in the country before the party launched into sharp free-fall, to the extent that the vote harvest for the country's oldest party's presidential candidate in the last two elections was less than two per cent of the total votes.

To further demonstrate that the party is a shell of its former self, Norbert Mao, its president-general, says DP had no functional bank account when he took over in 2010. The party has also been rocked by infighting and even Mao has since quarrelled with some of the people who previously backed him.
And the worst does not seem to be over yet. Observers predict a fiercer war when the party leadership positions open up for contestation next year.

Many DP members who boycotted the delegates' conference in which Mao was elected and have kept away from the party in the past three years are expected to try to regain control of the party in the upcoming election cycle.

Revival work
This is why Mao and his team are eager to seize the moment and do something. It is even more inspiring from Mao's perspective because Ben Kiwanuka's name is involved. The legendary DP leader is thought to have been killed on the orders of Idi Amin in 1972 when he served as Chief Justice. Many DP members draw inspiration from him.

Early in his tenure, Mao announced that his administration would embark on a search for Kiwanuka's remains (it is suspected that he was buried either in a field in Luzira or in Nakasongola).

The search for the remains has not yet borne fruits, but highlighting the highest moment in the party's history – in which Kiwanuka was the central figure – probably will. It is a gamble Mao is happy to take.

The celebrations launched yesterday will continue through most of the year and reach a climax on October 6 when the party will clock 60 years. In the course of the celebrations, Mao says, the leadership will take the opportunity to "revitalise" the party nationally.
And revitalising is what DP needs. The party currently has 15 MPs out of the 355 members, excluding the army representatives and ex-officio. And more poignantly from the DP perspective, all the 15 come from the central region.
This, according to secretary general Mathias Nsubuga, gives "the wrong impression" that DP is a Buganda party. Nsubuga argues that the fact that DP managed to win in 1961 despite Buganda boycotting the elections "points to the national character of the party from the outset".

Mao adds that under Ssemogerere and later Ssebaana Kizito – a span of about 40 years from 1972 to 2010 – DP "developed a Ganda-centric culture that was also coupled with indiscipline and lack of accountability on the part of certain members". He says he took over a party that "had basically dwindled to a Buganda party".

Cliques also took centre stage and they became influential, says Mao. "During Ssebaana's time," Mao gives an example, "decisions made collectively would be undermined by cliques".

Taking on the leadership of DP, therefore, was viewed by some as a wrong step in Norbert Mao's political career. Mao agrees with this view to some extent, suggesting that he would probably have done better as a politician if he had done something else instead of fighting for the leadership of DP.

"If sometimes I appear that my political capital is somehow diminished, it is because I have spent it on DP," Mao says of the sacrifices he has had to make.

But his critics say that he would not have done much better elsewhere since he does not seem to want to work under others.
When he took over a divided DP, Mao promised to reconcile the party but not much has come forth on that front. He may not be the only one to blame, though, given the complexities of the party he took over and the circumstances of his leadership.

The blame game
Mao and Mukono Municipality MP Betty Nambooze relate in an uneasy fashion. Mao knows fully well that his success as DP president depends to a high degree on the support he gets from Buganda, which is the party's stronghold.
And, he knows too, that people like Nambooze hold some sway in the politics of the region. He does not want to openly antagonise them.

Whenever occasion allows it, therefore, Mao seeks to be associated with Nambooze and group, who on the other hand seem to be careful not to appear to endorse Mao.

About Nambooze, Mao speaks with a deep-seated disappointment. But he also leaves allowance for reconciliation. "She has never stepped at the party headquarters (since Mao became president)," Mao says, "She does not contribute (money) to the running of the party (despite being in Parliament on DP ticket.)"

He then quickly blames the ruling party and FDC for the misunderstanding. "Many people have been victims of the current politics of short-termism," he says.

Nambooze, on her part, speaks of a "lack of commitment" on the part of the party leadership to reconcile the party.

"The recent leadership of the party," she says, "has been built along the lines of victory and humiliation of others."

Nambooze says Mao's biggest problem with her is the fact that in the last elections she backed FDC's Kizza Besigye despite the fact that she was running for Parliament on the DP ticket, which party was fronting Mao for president.

"But he (Mao) also spent most time running around with Besigye in 2006 despite the fact that he was supposed to manage Ssebaana's campaign," Nambooze shoots back.
Mao denies the charge of having abandoned Ssebaana to back Besigye, however, saying the only reason he was sometimes missing from Ssebaana's campaign was because he was himself a candidate campaigning concurrently, running for the Gulu District chair.

WAY FOWARD

Nambooze is just one among a number of DP luminaries who do not break bread with Mao. Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago is another.

Granted, Lukwago has been kept busy by battles surrounding the office of the Lord Mayor for the past three years or so. But it is also true that there has been clear deliberateness about his silence on matters DP. He would shrug off invitations to comment on issues in DP, saying he needed time to concentrate on fixing Kampala.

At other times, Lukwago seemed to lose interest in the whole idea of strengthening parties, arguing that concentrating on building political parties increased the possibilities of friction among "potential allies".

But the speculation still remained. Observers reckon that Lukwago could be sizing up a challenge against Mao for the DP presidency as a first step to a possible national presidential bid.

As President Museveni and his agents tightened the noose around Lukwago's neck at Kampala Capital City Authority, speculation mounted that Lukwago would consider taking on Museveni, something Lukwago has not ruled out. He may want to use DP as a vehicle.

When we spoke to him for this article, Lukwago chose his words deliberately and spoke carefully, as if keen not to give anything away. He declined to comment on whether he would go to Ggaba for the launch of the 60 years celebrations, only showing enthusiasm in talking about the way forward for the party.

Lukwago made a suggestion similar to what Nambooze had put across in a separate interview, calling for "an informal meeting aimed at thrashing out the contentious issues in the party before we go into the formal delegates' conference".

The rare happening is that this time round Mao's idea seems to coincide with what the duo suggests. Mao talks about plans to make "a radical suggestion" to the party's governing organs to "invite every interested party member to participate in charting the way forward in preparation for the next delegates' conference".

It is probably a lesson learnt on Mao's part, for in the lead up to the February 2010 Mbale delegates' conference, similar calls for first resolving the sticky issues in the party were ignored, leading to further splintering of the party.

As the infighting deepens and the party splinters, the membership is demoralised and many find their way out of DP.

In the early 2000s, for instance, a number of politicians from northern Uganda – notably Prof Ogenga Latigo, Reagan Okumu, Odonga Otto and Kassiano Wadri – left DP and eventually found a home in FDC.

In the earlier years, a good number had left for the ruling NRM and the exodus has continued, with the latest convert from DP to NRM, being former spokesperson Emmanuel Mwaka Lutukumoi, having been recently named deputy Resident District Commissioner.
Mao knows that many more can leave the party. He also knows that there are many more who can return to the party, especially if he is no longer the leader. The more important point he points at, however, is that democracy is "the most dependable arbiter in all this".

And this means setting in motion a process of leadership renewal within the party that will be seen by all as free and fair. If Mao does it, as he has pledged, he may by that one act become the most celebrated DP president since Ben Kiwanuka, even if he loses in the process. And the celebration of DP's 60 years may become that much needed future reference point when the party was put back on its founding ethos of truth and justice.

Ocen  Nekyon

Democracy is two Wolves and a Lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed Lamb contesting the results.

Benjamin Franklin