By Onghwens K. Kisangala
A lot is being said about party structures by the FDC Party President, Gen. Muntu, and his supporters. This is understandable because Organization, organisation, organisation and building party structures were Muntu’s 2012 campaign sloganeering catch-lines. And therefore, in seeking a second term of office in the on-going campaigns, it’s only natural that they explain what was achieved in the first term in regard to those promises.
It only becomes very challenging when what one is explaining in terms of achievement has completely no correlation with what is on ground. In fact, it portends wretchedness if that which is being articulated is an outright lie.
I will try to interrogate the possible truths and falsehoods in the structure building claims. The interrogations will however not question what Muntu did or did not do in his 7 year tenure as the in-charge of mobilization and organization of the party (before he became Party President). Those have since been overtaken by events and the renewal or not of his presidential tenure can be best judged on the performance of his term ending in November.
Today, he and his supporters claim the party structures have indeed been built and that it is better organized.
In some instances, when Gen. Muntu or any of his supporters are articulating his success in Party structure building, they do so in seeming assumption that none of it existed before. Yet every party member knows that when the party was formed in 2005, its lowest structure was the The Village Committee. The village here referred to every LC I jurisdiction.
Prior to the 2011 General Elections, it changed to Polling Area Branch (PAB). Yet again, before the 2016 elections, the party reverted to the original setting of the village but this time called, the Village Party Branch.
Beyond the village, the Party structures evolve through the parish, to the sub-county, feeding into the constituency, which feed into the district structures. The next level of Party structures are the national organs and also the diaspora. This set up of party structures was designed at the founding of the party in 2005. The administration of Gen. Muntu has not changed this design.
The filling of those structures start from the village and evolves systematically to the national level. It was first filled in 2005, renewed in 2009 and again in 2014.
Since the founding of the Party to date, this systematic building has not happened in some places. Members fail to organise from the village due to a number of challenges and choose to start at the sub-county or even the constituency level. Secondly, the NRM regime agents keep dismantling them variously countrywide. By this therefore, gaps have always existed and continue to do so.
There is no party organ which ever mooted solutions to address those challenges. But the People’s Government, which is a creation of the party, has in the last about 8 monts largely solved that problem. Therefore, if Gen. Muntu’s administration claims to have improved the status of party structures, let them mention specific areas where gaps existed in the past and have been fixed. What actions exactly did they undertake to fix such gaps, where and when?
Unfortunately, the Muntu apologists are busy peddling rather foolish lies that under Gen. Muntu, party structures have improved. The evidence they adduce is the fact that there are more delegates to the National Delegates Conference (NDC) today than ever before. This is foolish reasoning because it exudes ignorance as to how national delegates are arrived and yet the perpetrators of the cheap foolery know the truth.
To the NDC, every district is represented by 5 delegates and every constituency is represented by 2 delegates. It therefore means that the total number of delegates expected to attend the NDC from time to time cannot be determined by the party but the state which keeps creating new representative jurisdictions, i.e. districts and constituencies, hence the increase.
The contradiction however is, when the party National Council, sitting on 16th – 17th June 2017 resolved to refill the gaps before this coming November elections, Gen Muntu and his apologists in the meeting vigorously resisted the idea. Muntu literally cried like a baby in front of people claiming that the party would be divided if such a step is taken. So how can such a person be the same to be talked about now to have built party structures? Ridiculous!
Well, the beauty is delegates are not foolish. I will personally seek to learn from them what specific actions or steps Gen. Muntu’s administration undertook to build party structures. I am sure they will educate me.
The writer is a media officer in the Patrick Oboi Amuriat’s campaign team.