By Otim Nape
All indications from reliable insiders at Electoral Commission are that Jinja West constituency must have a new MP latest by the 2nd week of March.
The Parliamentary seat fell vacant recently when Court of Appeal Justices nullified the election of NRM’s Nathan Igeme Nabeta on grounds the 2016 polling results were falsified to favor him.
Paul Mwiru, the FDC man who caused him all this misery, is warming up with his assistants bragging it’s a done deal and it’s only the polling day they are awaiting.
Meanwhile, Mwiru famous for his clandestine political mobilization, is already meeting grass root voters while revitalizing his campaign structures.
It hasn’t been a hard job for him so far given the euphoria his court victory has since created in the voters. “Voters have so far received him with enthusiasm wherever he goes and have vowed to kill him with votes,” remarked a Jinja-based seasoned journalist who didn’t want to be named fearing that his assessment of the situation would create a wedge between him and his sources in the NRM camp.
Meanwhile a disarray of sorts has descended on the NRM camp after Igeme developed cold feet disclosing to Kyaddondo he isn’t very comfortable subjecting himself to political humiliation that is clearly awaiting him through the campaign trail that is expected to last three solid weeks.
“He says he is financially broke and emotionally broken. He doesn’t have the resources to plunge into such a grueling by-election this is threatening to be. He considers that the voters are very angry and hungry for the way he voted on the Togikwatako and doesn’t want to sacrifice himself again when he even has court/lawyers’ expenses to meet.
He is in the US right now resting and has sent signals to NRM leaders at Kyaddondo that it would serve the party better trying to find another person to carry their flag,” said a source close to the movers and shakers of the NRM things at Plot 10 Kyaddondo road which houses party headquarters.
We are impeccably informed that, fearing the spillover effect a defeat in Jinja West may have on the now demoralized Togikwatako voice in the country, Museveni is determined to invest as much as he can to prevent a Mwiru victory in Jinja West.
“The leaders at Kyaddondo are broke and rightly know election time in a much contested area like Jinja is the best time to eat Mzee’s dime and they badly want Igeme back in the race so as to use his candidature to access State House groceries,” said a knowledgeable insider.
We can reliably reveal that, stung by Igeme’s lack of enthusiasm to return to the trenches of Jinja West, a powerful Kyaddondo official has been hunting for DP deputy publicist Alex Waisswa Mufumbiro in order to persuade him to defect to NRM and become the flag bearer against Mwiru.
“It’s considered that Mufumbiro is the 3rd most powerful material for MP of that area once Mwiru and Igeme are discounted. It’s considered he is the best that can be fronted against Mufumbiro in the absence of Igeme,” said a Kyaddondo insider who was unable to confirm if the official’s efforts to link up with Mufumbiro had succeeded so far.
The NRM top official is also certainly motivated getting Mufumbiro into the picture because in the previous electoral contests he was more cruel and intolerant to Mwiru than to even Igeme.
This makes NRM official to think Mufumbiro can even this time round be engaged to greatly antagonize Mwiru to the point of almost defeating him in case Igeme isn’t anywhere in the picture.
NRM strategists also believe that a radical campaigner like Mufumbiro can be used to ride on the current post-election turmoil in FDC to diminish Mwiru’s chances at bouncing back as MP.
Despite the fact that he originally belonged to FDC, having been mentored by Salaam Musumba, Mufumbiro while campaigning in the Jinja electorates appears more bothered by a vibrant FDC than a deeply entrenching NRM party.
This makes strategists in the NRM to imagine that the former UCU guild President is someone they can politically do business with. Way back in the late 2000s, Mufumbiro was fired by the UCU top management from the office of guild after his guild administration was embroiled in fraud allegations that threatened to soil the image of the Christian University.
Instead of being sympathetic, FDC colleagues who feared he may vie for the post of party youth league chairperson commended the UCU management and called for more investigations into the UCU guild saga.
It was then that a much tormented Mufumbiro quit FDC before eventually sheltering in DP whose then Jinja strongman Mohamed Kezaala badly wanted more comrades in the Jinja-based struggle.
All said and done, the mood in Mwiru’s FDC camp is to ensure the impending by-election is turned into a waterloo of sorts for Igeme and other NRM diehards who they claim ignored voters’ preferences when voting on the Togikwatako Bill in Parliament last month. Watch this space for more updates on the build up to the much awaited Jinja by-election.
