{UAH} Allan/Pojim/WBK: Mbabazi changes campaign team
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Mbabazi changes campaign team
Independent presidential candidate Amama Mbabazi has overhauled his campaign taskforce in a bid to counteract infiltration by fellow candidate Yoweri Kaguta Museveni's agents.
The Go Forward candidate is also adjusting his campaign strategy to consolidate support ahead of the elections on February 18, 2016. A new taskforce will be announced today, Wednesday, Mbabazi said.
Mbabazi told a press conference at White Horse Inn Kabale at the weekend, that the new task force will majorly be "converting the obvious enthusiastic support across the country into votes."
Mbabazi, the Kinkiizi West MP, former prime minister and former secretary general of the ruling NRM is running as an independent candidate. He called off his campaigns in western Uganda at the weekend to attend a retreat with his allies under The Democratic Alliance Uganda (TDA-U), and discuss challenges such as Sunday's violent clashes between his supporters and those of NRM candidate Yoweri Museveni.
The changes, according to insider sources, are intended to counter the incumbent's efforts to infiltrate Mbabazi's campaign structures following last month's defection of Ronald Tumwine Ssekitooleko to Museveni's side.
He previously dismantled his countrywide structures in the wake of alleged infiltration and has reportedly replaced them with new teams headed by candidates at the respective levels.
"Some of the people that have been picking money to do mobilization work have instead been diverting the money to activities unrelated to the campaign; it is unlikely that if a candidate is in charge, the funds will be diverted," a source said.
CLASHES
The Observer has also learnt that Mbabazi intends to focus more on village meetings instead of rallies because such meetings get him to interact more directly with locals. This change was noticeable last week as he campaigned in the Kigezi sub-region. His rallies in western Uganda did not come with the pomp characteristic of his rallies in central and northern Uganda, which featured performances by various musicians.
Mbabazi entered the NRM's stronghold on December 10 and held rallies in Kabale before moving on to Kisoro, Rukungiri and Ntungamo districts where NRM functionaries organized counter events and demonstrations.
As he campaigned, Mbabazi urged his supporters to be courageous enough to deal with growing intimidation and provocation from state and NRM functionaries. Kisoro LC-V chairman Milton Bazanye Mutabaazi was the first to taste the wrath of Mbabazi's men last Friday. He was pushed and shoved out of the Mayor's gardens in Kisoro, the venue for Mbabazi's rally.
Moments before Mbabazi's arrival, Mutabaazi, smartly clad in an NRM shirt, was seen talking to groups of people with Mbabazi's campaign materials. He later moved to the venue's main entrance where members of Mbabazi's private security detail found him turning away people who were arriving for the rally. They instantly pounced on him before he fled.
The worst skirmishes occurred on Sunday in Ntungamo, where several alleged NRM protesters were severely beaten by alleged Mbabazi supporters. The protesters in yellow T-shirts with Museveni's portrait were staged at the various venues in the district where Mbabazi had scheduled rallies. The first altercation between the two groups was at Rwashamaire in Kajara county but it ended without any serious confrontation.
At Rubaare township in Rushenyi county, Mbabazi supporters arrested a man who was pulling down their candidate's posters and handed him to police. The same man was found with a jerrycan of petrol.
The first major clashes were at Kitwe, in first Lady Janet Kataaha Museveni's Ruhaama constituency, where Mbabazi's supporters vandalized a car with Museveni's campaign posters.
Its occupants, who were allegedly commanding the anti-Mbabazi onslaught, fled , as Mbabazi supporters pounced. NRM supporters who had lined the road leading to Mbabazi's rally venue also took to their heels.
In Ntungamo municipality, tensions were building up as NRM functionaries upped their counter mobilization efforts. The Observer witnessed one incident where a woman in a Land Cruiser UAL 607A gave out money and T-shirts to youths.
On seeing journalists, the woman ordered her driver to speed off. Police was trapped in the middle of the confusion as stick- wielding men emerged from Mbabazi's procession and pounced on their rivals.
Police had formed a ring around the pro-Museveni protesters who had got assurances from Ntungamo district police commander Baker Kawonawo that nothing would happen to them. For about 30 minutes, Mbabazi's supporters took charge of the town as they combed the streets, corridors and buildings for anyone donning yellow T-shirts.
WORST YET TO COME
Allen Kafureka, an NRM mobiliser, told The Observer that the protests were staged to show solidarity with President Museveni.
"It would be embarrassing for [Museveni] to watch news of Mbabazi campaigning successfully in Ntungamo, we had to do something to show him [Museveni] that we still love him because he has done so much for us," Kafureka said.
Kafureka was part of a team that moved around the town in a white Land Cruiser that distributed Museveni's T-shirts. But Mbabazi, at a press briefing at Equator hall in Ntungamo town urged his NRM colleagues to stay away from his rallies.
"I don't mind NRM attending my rallies but their provocation, their comments and interruptions constitute a strong reason for what happened…if this is not urgently arrested, it may spill into something ugly," Mbabazi said.
"When a candidate is having a rally in a given area, it's not proper for another party to hold a function around. NRM should take it calmly and easy and brace for the competition, there is real competition, they [NRM] should rise up to the challenge," Mbabazi said.
He blamed the Electoral Commission for not doing enough to stop the disruptions. On Monday, the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Gen Kale Kayihura airlifted 12 victims of Sunday's beating from Ntungamo to Mbarara hospital for treatment.
sadabkk@observer.ug
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