By Mulengera Reporters
At the party’s weekly news conference on Tuesday at their headquarters along Balintuma Road in Mengo, DP Women League President Sarah Adong took no prisoners as she down played the impact of her boss Deputy Party President Mukasa Mbidde’s support and endorsement for incumbent Speaker Anita Among. See full video via this YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfggaBQgk84&t=28s; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOasBDEEl0o&t=29s.
Among is the person DP President and Mbidde’s mentor for many years Norbert Mao is seeking to oust come May for the job of Speaker of Parliament, which places the holder in number three position in Uganda’s national hierarchy and order of precedence.
In shunning Mao, while embracing Among, Mbidde declared that his party President stands no chance in a race where DP has less than 10 MPs. In contrast, Anita Among’s NRM has more than 350 MPs in the 12th Parliament which comprises of 529 legislators.
Mbidde also asserted he isn’t bound to flock with Mao on the issue of Speakership because his bid was never discussed and authenticated to be the official DP position. He says no party organ ever sat to adopt that position.
At the Tuesday news conference at Balintuma, Sarah Adong, a Mao adherent who is also renowned for fiery speeches, directly responded to Mbidde accusing him of suffering from memory loss. She asserted that Mbidde ought to be reminded that he twice became EALA MP even at the time DP had very few members in the Parliament.
Adong explained that Mbidde, just like his EALA successor Gerald Blacks Siranda, was twice able to get the EALA slot simply because DP negotiated with NRM, as opposed to being an outcome of the party having large MP numbers in the Parliament. She said all this notwithstanding, Mbidde (who Mao recently described as a man or lawyer on a fishing expedition) is free to embrace Anita Among while disregarding Mao who she said will nevertheless put skeptics to shame by becoming the new Speaker of Parliament.
She claimed that Mao’s support was growing by the day and that, through negotiations, the very NRM votes which got Mbidde a job in Arusha twice, will ultimately deliver Mao to the Speakership role. Responding to a question by journalist Aggrey Baba, Adong said that DP NEC members were unanimously behind Mao, which is why only Mbidde is out there antagonizing his bid. She challenged Baba to name any other significant DP top official who is hostile to Mao’s bid apart from Mbidde.
“He [Mbidde] nevertheless remains our colleague and my President, even when he isn’t with us on this issue. That demonstrates the depth of internal democracy in DP. We are the only party which can tolerate that,” bragged Adong who was flanked by other DP Women League officials. The news conference was purposed to discuss the upcoming international women’s day celebrations which annually falls on 8th March.
Sarah Adong also claimed that there was a plot to use gullible Ugandan youths operating in the Tik Tok universe to trivialize Mao’s Speakership bid, and also accused Mukasa Mbidde of being fascinated with getting social media likes and views for his videos regardless of whether his utterances hurt the DP brand or not. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
