In a letter to all FDC members, party secretary general Nathan Nandala Mafabi issued a two weeks’ ultimatum: Choose between FDC and former party president Mugisha Muntu.
Mafabi said the party is going to carry out a membership audit following the dramatic severing of ties between them and the group led by Maj Gen Gregory Mugisha Muntu. Muntu, once a party president for five years, quit FDC last week following what he called irreconcilable differences.
Muntu later announced a pressure group, The New Formation,’ a precursor to a yet-to-be-formed party that will be announced before the end of this year.
“The party has been informed that…Mugisha Muntu, former party president, has renounced his membership to the party. He has also announced the formation of a political entity known as the New Formation in preparation for a political party. Some members have expressed an intention of pursuing alterative political direction. Following these political events in the party, it has been decided to undertake a membership audit at all leadership and elective levels,” Mafabi’s letter reads in part.
“This is to request all party leaders and elected officials on the party mandate to indicate to the party in writing whether they are still members of the Forum for Democratic Change within fourteen days; non-response will be treated as renouncement of membership.”
Following Muntu’s walk-out, a number of FDC members have announced they will also be leaving the party. However, many of those who have declared their intension to leave, like the party vice president for Eastern Uganda, Alice Alaso, don’t hold any elective position in the country, which makes it easy for them to publicly ditch the party.
However, although some MPs like Paul Mwiru, Winnie Kiiza, Herbert Ariko and Elijah Okupa, among others have said in the past they are allied to Muntu, they are yet to declare publicly that they have left the party. If they did, they would forfeit their positions in parliament.
The law prohibits change of parties before at least one year to the next general election. Mafabi’s threat of a non-response being tantamount to a renunciation of membership may not come to much in terms of ejecting the Muntu-leaning MPs from parliament.
Going by the Supreme court ruling in the Theodore Ssekikubo, Muhammad Nsereko, Wilfred Niwagaba and Barnabas Tinkasiimire versus the NRM, court ruled that an elected MP cannot lose his/her position by simply being expelled from a party.
Therefore, FDC might not benefit much from expelling those members who don’t respond to this ultimatum. Kennedy Okello, Kampala Capital City Authority lord councillor for Nakawa division who is also the FDC chief whip in the KCCA council, said the party is right to call for an audit.
“If the secretary general in his wisdom has realised there is need to do an audit of his members, we must comply. Secondly, this was actually a National Executive Committee resolution and as a party member, I can’t be defiant because this gives basis to reorganise ourselves. We should not be under any illusion that we are with somebody yet they are not with us. We must know which gaps we have and, therefore, fill them appropriately moving forward,” Okello said.
Addressing a weekly press conference at the party’s headquarters in Najjanankumbi on Monday, FDC spokesman Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda also called on members who feel they don’t want to belong to FDC anymore to come out and say it instead of sitting on the fence.
“It is good for everybody,” Ssemujju said.
bakerbatte@observer.ug