Uganda’s biggest opposition party snubs political parties’ summit

Kampala, Uganda (PANA) – Uganda’s biggest opposition political party, Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), has declared that it will not attend the summit of political parties slated to take place on May 22.

This will be the second time FDC snubs the meeting of top leaders of Uganda’s political parties under the auspices of the donor-backed Inter-Party Cooperation for Development (IPOD).

The first IPOD summit, attended by President Yoweri Museveni and leaders of four opposition parties with representation in Parliament, was also skipped by the FDC leadership.

FDC president Amuriat Oboi told a news conference in Kampala on Wednesday that the meeting set for next week will be “a social event” and that whereas they have no problem with other parties attending it, the party he leads doesn’t see it fit to meet with Mr Museveni at this point in time.

For FDC to engage with Mr Museveni, Mr Oboi said, the state must forthwith stop harassing FDC party leaders and stop breaking up their meetings.

The leading Opposition party two months ago launched a countrywide tour to popularise itself, but the police and other security agencies broke them up with ruthlessness, and stopped them from appearing on radio talk shows.

FDC sponsored four-time presidential candidate Kizza Besigye for the most recent election in 2016 and insists that he won the election, which they say was rigged in favour of Mr Museveni.

While the gatherings called by FDC have been broken up across the country in recent months, Mr Museveni launched a countrywide tour of his own and has been holding rallies in different regions in what has been viewed as a midterm campaign round.

The political parties’ summit now slated for next week had in fact been first set for May 15, but it was pushed ahead because President Museveni requested that he needed to first finish his tour of the mid-western sub-region.    

-0- PANA EM/AR 15May2019