NRM Suffers From Entitlement and Loss of Direction-Ofwono
The Executive Director of the Uganda Media Centre, Ofwono Opondo, has expressed concern over what he described as growing entitlement and lack of direction within the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM).
Speaking on NBS Frontline, a political talk show that airs every Thursday at 10 p.m., Opondo said the party should have anticipated the outcome of the Kawempe North by-election and participated without making it a high-stakes contest.
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“There is increasingly bad manners in the NRM. There is a lot of entitlement and loss of direction,” he said.
Opondo noted that he did not take the election too seriously, given that NRM has historically struggled to win the Kawempe North seat.
“NRM hasn’t won that seat in a long time. My understanding was that NRM was going to participate mainly to show that it is a good party,” he added.
He also called on the Uganda Police to account for the violence and brutality witnessed during the by-election, pointing out that the force is the lead agency responsible for election security.
“Police is the lead agency, so we should ask them to account. The good thing is that if police request support from the army, it is done in writing,” he said.
Opondo maintained that the election should not have been treated as a do-or-die affair, emphasizing that he does not blame the security forces but rather those who called them in and issued commands.
“There are people who think that every challenge to the government should be met with force. Those people should be weeded out,” he said.
In the by-election, NRM candidate Faridah Nambi finished second with 8,593 votes, while the National Unity Platform’s Elias Luyimbazi Nalukoola won with a landslide 17,764 votes. He now replaces the late Muhammad Ssegirinya, who passed away on January 9, as the Kawempe North representative in the 11th Parliament.
