The National Resistance Movement (NRM) is facing an implosion which is threatening its future as the ruling party, Justine Kasule Lumumba, the party’s Secretary General has acknowledged.
She attributes these internal weaknesses to the miserable loss the party suffered in the recently concluded Rukungiri District Woman MP by-election.
The NRM candidate Winfred Masiko faced stiff resistance from Betty Muzanira of FDC who became the new area MP.
Masiko had assumed the seat in 2016 only to be annulled by Court of Appeal on grounds that she rigged polls.
Lumumba who on Thursday addressed a news conference at the secretariat at Plot 10 Kyadondo Road in Nakasero, confessed before cameras that the party is weak and needs to address this challenge with might before it loses grip on the political arena.
“But it was also partially because of our internal problems of NRM both at the centre and in Rukungiri,” said Lumumba.
“Part of our problems has been the internal weaknesses which you are also aware of since they have been flashed in the media.”
However, she was quick to add that the NRM performed excellently in Rukungiri compared its previous scorecard in the area on grounds that it is an opposition stronghold.
“I think we did very well as NRM when it comes to Rukungiri when you compare the percentage NRM got at the different levels in the last election and this by-election. Though we had won the woman seat in 2016, we lost it this time,” Lumumba said.
After Court annulled Masiko’s victory, the party chairman President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni camped in Rukungiri and dished out goodies amounting to shs 5 billion to a number of SACCOs under the guise of fighting poverty in the district.
To opposition politicians this was well laid plan by the regime to lure voters into re-electing Masiko.
However Lumumba advised that admitting that the NRM is marred with challenges helps to address them rather than denying, “it also good to acknowledge where we have shortcomings as party because that is the only healthy way we can improve.”
She refuted the belief that the party is lately underperforming due to the constitutional amendment bill passed by Parliament which scraps the Presidential age limit and also raises MP’s term from five to seven years.
“So I don’t think the constitutional amendment bill doesn’t have impact on our by-elections.
But that doesn’t mean that after the constitutional amendment bill Ugandans are losing trust in us. Because when consultations were done by MPs the majority would stand on the floor and say that out of many subcounties some voters supported the amendment while others were against it,” she suggested.
Lumumba said before Parliament voted, the party commissioned a survey to ascertain implications of this bill.
“Equally the party went to the ground and made consultations and we came up with a report which we submitted to CEC.”
She acknowledged that an election is a competition where there is a loser and a winner. She warned of an imminent NRM win in the upcoming Bugiri Municipality polls and several other elections that will emerge.
“So in a competition there must be a winner and a loser.”
The Rukungiri Woman MP by-election loss came on the heels of another loss the party suffered in the Jinja East by-election where FDC’s Paul Mwiru trounced NRM’s Nathan Igeme Nabeta
