The National Resistance Movement (NRM) on Wednesday launched the party’s 2019-2021 political roadmap.
The launch at Plot 10, the party’s headquarters was carried out despite pending electoral reforms as ordered by Justice Bart Katureebe in 2016.
The Supreme Court made number of recommendations to guarantee free and fair elections come 2021 following a petition by former Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi.
Some of these reforms included prohibiting donations during elections, extending the time for filing and determining of the petition, allowing other nature of evidence in an election petition, extending the time for holding fresh elections in case an election is nullified.
A law regulating the use of technology as well as laws prohibiting involvement of public officers in political campaigns and exclusion of the Attorney General in election petitions were also fronted.
The Supreme Court gave attorney General a period of two years to report to the court the measures that have been taken to implement these recommendations, the court will thereafter make other recommendations.
The court had ordered Attorney General to work upon these recommendations before Electoral Commission embarks on planning for the next general election.
However, NRM secretary general Justine Kasule Lumumba said the roadmap will be their driving wheel to ensure victory come 2021.
“For this roadmap to move well, we shall seek a new mandate basing on our record of performance in the areas of; ‘improved road network’, ‘peace’ and ‘improved household incomes’. This is why we have come out to start as early as possible,” said Lumumba.
She explained that the road-map will run from January 2019 – where they will mobilize NRM members in all corners of the country to register for national identity cards up to the Presidential campaigns which will kick off on Wednesday, September 2, 2020.
Lumumba said: “We shall use the roadmap to find out why we lost and what must be done to restore what we lost.”
In August 2019, the compilation of the NRM membership register will come to an end but in September they will be extracting voter’s roll from the members register by NRM Electoral Commission.
NRM’s latest move comes three days after pressure group Citizens’ Coalition for Electoral Democracy in Uganda (CCEDU) coordinator Crispin Kaheru wrote to President Yoweri Museveni, cautioning him about monetization of elections, integrity of the voter’s register and violence during elections.
President Museveni is also chairman, NRM.
“Since the Electoral Commission has already launched its roadmap, it is now upon to every participant (political parties) to do the same because what NRM has done is good and timely,” Kaheru told Watchdog Uganda.
In response to Kaheru, Lumumba said all the electoral reforms issues will be handled in May during the party caucus.
“Then we will expedite the enactment of enabling laws and creation of constituencies where it will be necessary,” said Lumumba.
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