{UAH} NUP COUNCILORS VOTE FOR NRM AGAIN IN LUBAGA

By Mulengera Reporters 

Despite all efforts made to ensure the NUP party (with 64 councilors) doesn't get humiliated in the Rubaga Division Speakership race, by the time the last vote was counted Gen Museveni's ruling NRM party had (unexpectedly) carried the day with their Musa Mbaziira polling 49 votes against Kamwokya-sponsored Rehema Ssanyu Ffuge who scored 45. This was an outcome of an Electoral College vote where NRM had only 11 members. The others are DP (2 councilors), FDC (3), 9 independents-3 of whom are NRM-leaning and 6 NUP-leaning.

We are here to demonstrate to you our dear reader that the Tuesday events are only a symptom of the politics of factionalism and intrigue bedeviling the NUP camp in Rubaga Division. As Mulengera News reported earlier, there are tensions and uneasiness between the area Mayor Zachary Mawula Mberaze on one hand and the area MPs Abubaker Kawalya (Rubaga North) and Aloysius Mukasa (Rubaga South) on the other. Whereas for Kawalya it's about supremacy (those things of who has to be the NUP top kingmaker in the Division), for Aloysius Mukasa it's about political survival and paranoia of Mberaze, a resident of Mutundwe in Rubaga South, potentially developing appetite to come for his MP Seat come 2026.

As such, the two legislators, renowned for being excellent deal-makers, set out to seek to have a Speaker who isn't very friendly to Mberaze because that would enable the very popular politician to deepen his political base. Upon knowing that Mberaze favored Ffuge, the two legislators coalesced around Ronald Semaganda, one of the flamboyant NUP councilors from Kawalya's Rubaga North. Indeed, the fight escalated into the party primary elections held last week at NUP headquarters in Kamwokya where Mberaze openly canvassed support for his Rehema Ffuge who eventually carried the day.

Even when Mukasa camped inside the NUP compound where polling took place to bolster Semaganda, the flamboyant Kawalya kept monitoring and coordinating from the nearby Semakokiro restaurant. And by the time the last vote was counted, Ffuge had 38 votes fatally trouncing the MPs-backed Semaganda who trailed with 27 votes. A group of NUP councilors, led by a one Mr. Suleiman Nakulabye, had spearheaded the anti-Ffuge campaign during the Kamwokya exercise.

Even when Semaganda and his 27 councilors seemed to have conceded defeat and moved on, the NUP leadership anticipated trouble and prompted Mberaze to do more to further deescalate the conflicts and factionalism among his councilors. And acting as instructed, Mberaze on Sunday convened a meeting of all the 64 NUP Councilors and the two MPs. The meeting took place at Rubaga Division headquarters during which members claimed to have reconciled while vowing to kill flag bearers Ffuge and Henry Mpiima (flag bearer for Deputy Speaker) with votes come Tuesday.

Many councilors said that was the least they could do to reciprocate the NUP/Kyagulanyi support which had enabled them win and the political martyrs and veterans of the anti-Museveni struggle who continue to languish in Luzira, Kitalya and other prisons. Determined not to take chances, Councilor Emmanuel Kiiza who chaired the Sunday reconciliation meeting suggested that Mberaze, in his capacity as political head of Rubaga Division, mobilizes resources and had all the 64 NUP Councilors kept in one nice hotel where they could stay and be monitored from up to Tuesday which was the Speakership voting day.

There was extreme fear that the NRM camp, loaded with a lot of money and aided by some evil-minded NUP insiders, planned to financially engage the same Councilors through the same Sunday night and much of Monday (dangling Shs500,000 at each of them) and cajole them into betraying the man from Magere and vote for Kabowa Councilor Musa Mbaziira. From day one, the curiously wealthy Mbaziira asserted he deserved Speakership because in the previous term he was elected so but was unable to have significant impact because the Covid19 lockdown came when he had only served for two months. His wish finally came through when the NRM money delivered wonders, leaving many NUP diehard supporters cursing whoever invented money.

As if to have premonition about what awaited his NUP on Tuesday, Robert Kyagulanyi rang one of the leading NUP luminaries in Rubaga, as Councilors retreated in the hotel, to ask why out of 64 Councilors only 45 were at the retreat. The remainder were nowhere to be seen and Kyagulanyi wondered why when all the necessary material provisions had been put in place by the party, through Mberaze, to ensure none of their councilors gets compromised with what the party officially dismissed as "evil money from the NRM camp."

During the Sunday meeting, the two MPs released statements of solidarity vowing to do anything in their power to ensure that Rehema Ffuge, being the Kyagulanyi-endorsed flag bearer, wins. Kawalya (who a few years earlier triumphed against the FDC-backed candidate to become KCCA Speaker) rang and even addressed councilors having been put on loud speaker on the phone belonging to one of the reconciliation meeting organizers.

He even followed this up with a recorded audio assuring everyone that Rehema Ffuge was the deal. This created some confidence among councilors present that everyone was finally on board though some officials at the Kamwokya-based NUP headquarters remained skeptical the Rubaga North MP meant what he said.

As for Aloysius Mukasa, who faces a very frightening court petition by fellow money bags Princess Eugenia Nassolo, he didn't attend the reconciliation meeting too but released a news statement declaring total support for Rehema Ffuge though many remained skeptical about his loyalty on this issue. "He is naturally very paranoid about the Nassolo court case and believes Mayor Mberaze is a potential dangerous substitute for NUP should the worst happen. There is no way he would wish the Mayor [Mberaze] to have a Speaker of his choice as opposed to one who can keep him under check," says one of the pro-Ffuge NUP Councilors who remains tearful about the Tuesday debacle.

It was such a bad day that Councilors openly clashed with some leaving with bruised faces. The fist-fighting involved NUP Councilors fighting on different sides and the Speakership election organizers had to call in police and military to restore calm. Some trouble causers had to be arrested for fermenting chaos. Aloysius Mukasa eventually came around to ironically join fellow NUP Councilors in mourning their political loss and defeat to NRM's highly strategic Musa Mbaziira.

The defeat of the NUP candidate (though Henry Mpiima won as Deputy Speaker with 74 votes beating NRM's Edris Kasayirwe who managed only 10 votes) has created plenty of anxiety with Magere and Kamwokya exhibiting extreme disappointment over what happened. It's also true that some of the NUP Councilors for Rubaga Division came from old parties DP and FDC where they always didn't see eye to eye.  For instance, Division Councilors who believe in Rubaga South LC5 Lord Councilor Faridah Nakabugo saw it as their duty to gang up and fail Rehema Ffuge as a way of furthering her proxy wars with Nakabugo. The two babes belonged to FDC where they didn't see eye to eye and all that intrigue was evidently transitioned into NUP.

Yet the Rubaga predicament isn't an isolated incident because NUP suffered similar betrayal in Kira Municipality where DP, which is clearly a minority party there, won the Speakership vote. In Makindye Sabagabo, the political intrigues between the camps of new MP David Serukenya and that of his predecessor Sajjalyabene Sempala resulted into chaos prompting organizers to postpone Speakership elections. In Nansana Municipality, the NUP candidate won but after competing against a faction of fellow NUP Councilors who backed the NUP-leaning independent.

In Ali Nganda's Makindye Municipality, the NUP candidate for deputy Speaker didn't perform well largely because of betrayal and failure by Councilors to resist groceries from the ruling NRM. In Kampala Central Division, not very surprisingly, the NUP Councilors struggled to make their voices heard and their presence felt via the ballot box.

All said and done, there are fears that the Tuesday fracas, which saw Councilor Chief Mboowa lead a group of councilors to throw punches here and there, could further deepen the clearly emerging wedge and uneasiness between the Mayor Mberaze and the two area MPs. Many of the NUP stakeholders in the Rubaga area who Mulengera News spoke to were fearful that the NUP Principal Robert Kyagulanyi Sentamu had become very disappointed to the extent that he might never forgive nor associate with certain key political actors in the politically, culturally and religiously very important Rubaga Division.
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"When a man is stung by a bee, he doesn't set off to destroy all beehives"

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