NUP accuses FDC of intellectual dishonesty, blackmail in speakership race

The opposition National Unity Platform (NUP) Deputy President for Buganda Region, Member of Parliament for Nyendo-Mukungwe county, and Leader of Opposition in Parliament Mathias Mpuuga has accused the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party of dishonesty.

Mpuuga while speaking to media on Monday said that the FDC are using NUP as a soft target after failed bids for positions of Speaker and Deputy Speaker of parliament respectively.

According to Mpuuga, the NUP did not have a candidate they threw their weight behind, as FDC’s Ssemujju Nganda and Yusuf Nsibambi allege.

“I have never been part of any platform that ordered our members to vote for a particular candidate for Speaker. We had a liberal discussion about the possibilities, it didn't make sense for us to order our members to vote anyone,” Mpuga stated.

During the speakership elections last week, FDC candidate Ssemujju polled only 15 votes despite having 119 members of the opposition in parliament.

His counterpart Yusuf Nsibambi polled only 35 votes for the Deputy Speaker position.

Following their failure, Ssemujju and Nsibambi accused NUP MPs of conniving with the ruling NRM legislators to cause their misery.

However, Mpuuga says that the FDC are being dishonest.

“FDC knows what happened and they are trying to go for the soft target which is NUP because I am sure they didn't even get "their own votes". They are trading intellectual dishonesty,” Mppuga said.

I wish Hon Ssemujju was here so that I can ask him some questions and he asks me some. I want to tell Hon Ssemujju and FDC that in the future, they would rather not do something they aren’t convinced about instead of doing it as a form of blackmail,” he added.