EALA ELECTION: How UPC candidate’s late coming, NUPs indecisiveness flipped numbers

Last week, Members of Parliament voted Uganda’s representatives for the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) in an election that was marred by exclusive chaos and mathematical defaults.

The election that had initially shown no signs of presenting shocks almost ended as predicted save for a few upsets which can be traced down to two factors; individual mistakes and party indecisiveness.

The ruling National Resistance Movement got all their candidates going through in no particular order, despite reports earlier hinting at the fact that Mary Mugenyi and Paul Musamali would most likely fail the test.

Indeed, two days before the elections, a section of Members of Parliament verbally expressed in the corridors that Mary Mugenyi did not deserve a term in EALA as she did not need it.

The MPs who argued that the positions for EALA are primarily for financial benefit insisted that Mugenyi already had her palms oiled, hence it was only prudent she retires home and mint from her investments.

Nile Post understands that a section of legislators from Busoga had been campaigning for Babirye Veronica Kadogo, the former woman MP for Buyende District as a replacement for Mugenyi.

Kadogo was even boosted by the fact that she had been an MP and most legislators who served with her in the 10th parliament gave her the node. This situation put one of NRM’s candidates in a very difficult position.

Mugenyi, Musamali, Kadogo, Namara mathematics

For Kadogo to get in, one of the NRM candidates had to make way and the names on the chop list were three: Mary Mugenyi sitting at the apex of it, while Musamali came second and Denis Namara guarded the door.

Two days to the elections, Musamali had dropped off the list and Namara remained in the relay race with Mugenyi.

Nile Post spoke to a legislator from Northern Uganda who on condition of anonymity in a voice note indicated that Namara and Mugenyi found themselves in a similar position because they hailed from the same region.

Musamali was initially the one to be replaced by Kadogo since he hailed from Eastern Region, but after careful consideration, a section of legislators agreed either Mugenyi or Namara make way.

Namara was later to be saved by age, with a bigger section arguing that he was more youthful and that it would be better to keep him for the youth card.

It was therefore clear that Mugenyi would be gone as soon as the cock crows.

UPC candidate’s mistake saves Mugenyi

Initially, NRM was to send through all their candidates and carry two candidates from the opposition through the window.

The said candidates include: Democratic Party’s Siranda Blacks, and Uganda People’s Congress’ Fred Ebil

Indeed, the plan looked all but finished had it not been disrupted by the mathematical entrance of Kadogo and the personal mistakes of Ebil that would later prove detrimental to the entire equation.

It is reported that Ebil on the day turned up a little late for victory, which also made him so much in time for the flight to Taiwan.

Ebil, according to some legislators had been so certain the coalition with the NRM had enough wings to carry him through and might have taken the task of campaigning a little lightly.

“Our comrade came late really in the entire campiagns, most of the activities had started and those with quick choices had moved on,” one of the legislators said after the elections.

With Ebili out of the picture, Mugenyi automatically found her lucky numbers.

Following his failure to go through, Ebil however blamed the NRM for betraying the process.

"We have been saying that NRM and UPC are not in a marriage, now this election has proved us correct,"Ebil said.

Ebil complained that members of the ruling NRM, in the end, voted based on "who has been with me in the constituency."

His party President Jimmy Akena also maintained that NRM behaved selfishly.

"The NRM should have fielded 9 candidates if they wanted," Akena said.

In response, the NRM Parliament caucus spokesperson Brandon Kintu deduced Ebil's failure to the choices by voters.

"In the end, it was down to the choices of the voters,"Brandon said.

Agaba the money bags

Independent candidate David Agaba is the other party that almost had a say on the results of the EALA election.

Agaba, a week before the election released the cash taps, letting them flow like a sea stream to legislators.

Make no mistake, President Museveni through the NRM caucus had already curtain raised in the cash department, setting the ground rolling with a Shs10million tokens to legislators.

Agaba sought to swim in the same water, releasing cash from no one knows where. On the eve of the voting day, sources say Agaba had released more than Shs400m to MPs through his agents.

“MPs were singing Agaba’s name before voting, it was clear he was on a smooth sail,” a staff in the office of the speaker mentioned to Nile Post.

Alas, Agaba found himself far below the pecking order, managing a clean 200 thereabout votes and indeed, throwing a vote imbalance in the calculations of UPC’s Ebili and narrowly ejecting DP’s Siranda.

Speaking on NBS TV’s frontline, FDC’s Ssemujju Nganda confirmed that Siranda “narrowly survived” drowning in the chaos.

Agaba is not a new player to the game though, it should be noted that in 2016, he pulled out of the race in Rubanda with David Bahati after reportedly arriving at a financial agreement.

It is said that the cash he obtained from the gentleman’s agreement with Bahati has been waiting for such exhibitions, unfortunately, it was the bad time to make stakes.

NUP’s indecisiveness

The Opposition National Unity Platform (NUP) had first moved away from the election by choosing not to field a candidate.

The party later also confirmed they would not be participating in the election, with Chief whip John Baptist Nambeshe adding that they “believed the elections were not democratic at all”.

NUP’s absence automatically darkened the chances of FDC’s Herold Kaija, irrespective of the fact that the two parties are on record for working against each other during.

The presence of all NUP’s 55 legislators would have been enough to disrupt the numbers, just like their absence.

Initially, it was reported that NUP legislators had sat out the exercise until, during the Next Media Talk Show, Flavia Nabagabe hinted that indeed, some of their members had gone ahead to participate.

Lillian Aber also accused Butambala legislator Aisha Kabanda of voting. Kabanda had earlier denied it, urging those making allegations to produce evidence.

With the NUP providing a numbers’ chaos, and its members voting from an individual point of view, this withdrew numbers from opposition candidates, leaving some independent candidates stronger.

The EALA elections therefore despite providing the much-expected results with a few sideshows of ugly scenes boiled down to the mathematics of intrigue, the semantics of tribe and party, and the general availability of logistics. As they say, politics is a game of numbers, it finally came down to where the numbers fell.