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From Gloria Kuliva in Kampala
The newly elected Member of Parliament for Mukono North constituency, Betty Nambooze Bakireke, has urged the Democratic Party President General, Norbert Mao and his executive, to re-consider the party’s resolution about the Inter Party Coalition (IPC).
 Speaking from her home in Nakabago, Mukono Town Council, following her bye-election victory over the National Resistance Movement (NRM), Ms Nambooze said that without the support of the IPC she doubted whether she could have won Tuesday’s contest. “These elections were between one individual against the whole state. There is no way a single person like me would have fought and beaten the whole government. The IPC support helped me by not fielding fellow opposition candidates. This gave us time and strength to battle the NRM’s candidate,” she noted.
Nambooze added that despite the fact that her party would have won these elections without the support from the IPC, the important support offered to her by the Inter Party Coalition spokes person Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) Deputy President Salaam Musumba and Sarah Eperu of FDC made her success easier.
She noted that since Uganda is not operating under the normal system, there is need of togetherness amongst those who would wish to fight against the bad governance of the dictator [Yoweri Museveni]. “The worst thing is that, whenever you talk about the IPC, people straight away think about FDC’s Dr. Kiiza Besigye. But if DP issues are solved, Norbert Mao is a better and stronger candidate to stand for the presidential post than Besigye since he [Besigye] stood and lost twice. At the moment, Uganda needs a new and able candidate which I see in Mao,” she said.
Ms Nambooze wondered why her party should fear competition adding that it is time her  party’s President General competes in the IPC to beat Besigye and compete with NRM’s dictator, Museveni. She cautioned that it would be unfair for the IPC to use the victory in Mukono to blackmail the DP saying that, that was not negotiated upon.
Nambooze appealed to the DP top officials to re-consider their stance on IPC, adding that while she agreed with forming a coalition of opposition political parties, she also had some issues with some of the sections in the IPC memorandum that she does not agree with. These, she added, needed to be resolved. “I understand that there existed the IPC in Uganda in the 1960s BETWEEN Kabaka Yekka party (KY) and the Uganda People’s Congress which caused trouble but what I know is that, that can easily be avoided and in politics, you can not avoid working together and making alliances if you are to achieve success,” she revealed.
Nambooze said that though DP is not weak, it cannot fight alone against the bad system now prevalent in the country. “In DP, there exists three categories of supporters; those who have genuine support for the party and see that joining the IPC will lead their party to weaken ; those who just need to be taught and lastly those who were paid by the government to bring confusion in the party and also make sure that it does not cooperate with the other opposition parties.
While the DP refuses to join the IPC, it is should be noted that it has been the first to benefit from it when other opposition political parties decided to stand behind its candidate, Betty Nambooze Bakireke in the by election after FDC’s Kiiza Besigye pulled out their party’s flag bearer, Moses Makubi Lukubira in favor of DP’s Nambooze. At the same time, UPC’s Olara Otunnu is said to have contributed UgShs 2million to run the campaigns while the Conservative Party’ John Lukyamuzi wrote to the electoral commission declaring that his party had no candidate following the refusal of the party’s flag bearer Charles Jingo to withdraw thus standing as an individual candidate.
“Most people are worried whether public services will be extended to them following the statements made by NRM officials while campaigning that they will receive nothing. But they should know that a government led by two cats is more powerful than one led by a hundred rats. They should also know that the opposition is the salt in the parliament that is why NRM members of parliament first meet in their caucus before raising any issues,” Nambooze said.
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