Speaking to journalists on Tuesday, the spokesperson of the National Unity Platform (NUP) Joel Ssenyonyi revealed that their party is not fronting anyone for the Serere county By-election.
Ssenyonyi said they had many candidates who were aspiring to stand and contest however in the spirit of working together as the opposition, they agreed to support Alliance for National Transformation (ANT) candidate Alice Alaso.
The Nakawa West lawmaker noted that it’s time for NUP to walk the talk; that if they are preaching unity, it’s the right time to put their gospel into action.
“As we have consistently told the nation, the National Unity Platform strongly believes in the unity of the forces of change at the core and this is yet another gesture to prove our commitment to that unity.”
He also thanked the members of the Party who had already expressed their desires to join the race for observing the party’s core value of believing in unity and accepted to go with the party’s decision.
“We are grateful to the would-be aspirants under NUP who exercised great maturity and agreed to delay their ambitions for the greater good of the struggle for a better nation. When ANT wins it’s the opposition who wins and that is the unity that we are always looking at,” said Ssenyonyi.
However, sources within the party, also revealed to Watchdog Uganda that the recent performance of NUP’s candidates in all recent by-elections has not been good because they have been targeted by the state machinery. Sources say that in all by-elections, NUP members have suffered from abductions by the state machinery with the aim of causing fear in the electorate.
Also, NUP’s popularity in Serere county is still low that is why they decided to support Alaso who has some influence in the area as a former leader.
“Gen Mugisha Muntu and all his party members have always supported NUP, this is the time to show him that we are with him because his candidate is way far good than ours. They have been on the ground for some time and they are more than ready. Sincerely ANT has the best candidate and if we were to be fair she would have been unopposed, the NRM knows it, even our brothers in FDC know that Alaso is the best and a good leader that must be in Parliament,” said the source.
Last month ANT unveiled Alaso as their flag bearer in the by-election while FDC unveiled Emmanuel Eratu.
According to the roadmap announced by the Electoral Commission, the nomination of candidates will be conducted on Thursday -Friday this week at the Office of the District Returning Officer, Serere district.
Nominated candidates will conduct campaign meetings for nine (9) days, that is, from February 13 to `February 21, 2023, while polling and tallying of results for the by-election of Member of Parliament will be conducted on February 23, 2023.
Meanwhile, Serere County Parliamentary seat fell vacant following the death of the area Member of Parliament Okabe Patrick who passed on last December in a motor accident.
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