{UAH} Allan/Pojim/WBK: Mbabazi meets more election troubles - Elections
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Mbabazi meets more election troubles
Independent presidential candidate Amama Mbabazi addresses supporters at Bulakati Play Grounds in Lukaya on Wednesday. PHOTO BY Rachel Mabala
In Summary
Examples. His campaign rallies in Kalungu East constituency were reportedly poorly organised.
Independent presidential candidate Amama Mbabazi's return on the campaign trail on Wednesday was not particularly fun for him.
In Kalungu East constituency, where his first rally had been scheduled, the organisation was visibly poor. People were not aware, the routes were mixed up and MP Joseph Ssewungu was more embarrassed than ashamed.
"This is chaos. The thing has been poorly organised," he was heard saying as he passed through a group of journalists at a muddy washing bay where Mr Mbabazi had been led to address a group of enthusiastic onlookers.
Mr Mbabazi was visibly upset. Earlier in the morning, he had stopped midway the journey and grilled Ms Haawa Nabosa, a lady who had been put in charge of grassroots mobilisation in the area.
He was heard grilling Ms Nabosa why he was being taken through a different route from the one agreed upon earlier.
Ms Nabosa responded with a myriad of explanations, one of them being that there were no people yet at the first venue, Bulakati in Lukaya.
Later, while addressing people, Mr Mbabazi apologised for the mix-up, saying the routes had been messed up.
However, when Daily Monitor caught up with Ms Nabosa later, she heaped the blame on the Go Forward secretariat in Kampala.
"I kept begging them to give me money to prepare and mobilise but they didn't. It is actually Mr Mbabazi who has just given me money (after the grilling). He complained and asked me why things were the way they were and asked me how much money I wanted to put things right and he gave it to me," Ms Nabosa said.
"We never got the opportunity to even announce that Mr Mbabazi was coming. The disorganisation at the secretariat is not good for us," she added.
Later on, she was heard complaining to Mr Mathias Nsubuga, the Democratic Party secretary general and one of Mr Mbabazi's chief strategists, that "people at the secretariat switched off their phones and could not be got for any help."
Ms Solome Kimbugwe, the chief of staff of the Go Forward campaign team and head of the secretariat did not answer our phone calls and did not respond to text messages either.
Asked what caused the mix up, Mr Nsubuga too blamed the secretariat. "Those people at the secretariat have been doing things in an ad hoc manner. But now that we have a campaign team to be headed by Olara Otunnu, all this will end," he said.
This is not the first time the secretariat is being blamed by grassroots mobilisers of messing up Mr Mbabazi's campaigns.
In Busembatia, Go Forward members complained of being left out in the mobilisation and organisation of the rallies in the area.
They said the "Kampala team" chose to direct everything on remote control from their offices and that it was the reason Mr Amama Mbabazi failed to attract large crowds in their area.
On Thursday, several members who had been named on Amama Mbabazi's National Campaign Task Force disowned the Go Forward, claiming they had never agreed to be part of the team, attracting further criticism on the secretariat's conduct of the election activities.
iimaka@ug.nationmedia.com
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