{UAH} Allan/Pojim/WBK: Otafiire is now UPC???? NRM risks collapse, says Otafiire - National

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NRM risks collapse, says Otafiire

Justice minister Kahinda Otafiire addresses journalists at his office in Kampala yesterday. PHOTO BY STEPHEN WANDERA 

Kampala- Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister Kahinda Otafiire has warned the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) faces collapse should it expel its members who are contesting as independents in the 2016 general election.

Maj Gen Otafiire also said he is not afraid of expulsion from the ruling party, insisting that he will contest his Ruhinda South Constituency parliamentary seat as an independent, defying party orders that he would be expelled.

The minister said it is wrong for the NRM, which insists it will expel such members, to assume it is right and a half of its members as being in the wrong.

Gen Otafiire claimed many party members, who had been rigged out of the party primaries, wanted the party to listen to their cases but it ignored them.

"If NRM decides to expel those who will go as independents, there will be something wrong with the party. It will be no party," he said yesterday at a press conference in Kampala.
"To insist that you are right and they are wrong is to go the UPC [Uganda Peoples Congress] way and you know where UPC went; it disintegrated."

The minister's remarks came against the backdrop of insistence by the NRM Secretariat that its members who lost in the October/November party primaries shouldn't run in 2016.

Gen Otafiire lost the October 27 NRM primaries to Capt Donozio Mugabe Kahonda, a retired soldier, who polled 21,467 votes against the minister's 12,949 votes, defeating the minister in all the sub-counties – a feat he pulled off while he was incarcerated on charges of forgery.

Gen Otafiire insists his opponent does not have the requisite academic qualifications but the retired UPDF captain has been nominated both by the ruling party and the Electoral Commission to run for Parliament.

Gen Otafiire also said he is not afraid of being expelled from the NRM, saying in any case he was an UPC member.

He also said the presidential advisor on media, Mr Tamale Murundi, who the Uganda Commissions Commission has banned from speaking on broadcast media, has a constitutional right to speak.

"Let him speak. It is his constitutional right. If you are not happy with what they have said, go to court."

The chaos in NRM primaries

Some of the other notable ministers who lost the NRM primaries are Henry Banyenzaki (State, Economic monitoring), Daudi Migereko (Lands), Jessica Alupo (Education) and Henry Kajura (Public Service).

Many of them claim their opponents rigged the vote. The party later set up a committee headed by NRM vice chairman Moses Kigongo to investigate what went wrong during the primaries.

The committee has never made its findings public, instead it reported to the President.

Whatever it found, the NRM's primaries were an indictment of the not just the party secretariat but also its elections referee's ability to execute a free and fair contest. NRM's electoral commission chief Tanga Odoi has repeatedly said he did the best he could in the circumstances – though he also accused the secretariat head of not giving his office all the assistance it needed, like an up to date register.

Party leaders speak
The secretariat deputy head, Mr Richard Todwong, on the other hand, blamed individuals he refused to name and the political Opposition of orchestrating the chaos in the primaries.
NRM secretary general Justine Lumumba later apologised to the party delegates during the party's national conference in Namboole, Kampala.

nwesonga@ug.nationmedia.com

NRM risks collapse, says Otafiire - National

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NRM risks collapse, says Otafiire - National

http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/NRM-risks-collapse-says-Otafiire/-/688334/2987726/-/y7o7g9/-/index.html

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