NWOYA – President Museveni has been a leeway to contest for his sixth term in office after the NRM Central Executive Committee (CEC) endorsed him as its sole candidate in the 2021 presidential election.
The party’s top decision-making body made the resolution on Tuesday during its retreat at Chobe Safari Lodge in the Murchison Falls National Park.
“To emphatically recommend to the membership of the Movement and its organs that Yoweri Museveni, our leader and General of the African Resistance, continues leading the Movement in 2021 and beyond as we eliminate the bottlenecks `to transformation,” the NRM statement reads in part.
In the endorsement, the party described Mr Museveni as the “theoretician and principal strategist of the Movement”.
Mr Rogers Mulindwa, the NRM spokesman, said with endorsement by CEC, they will now continue selling the idea to other party members ahead of the National Delegates Conference in November.
“There is no law breached. This matter can continue to be sold to other party members as we get closer to the National Delegates Conference in November this year,” Mr Mulindwa said.
It remains to be seen whether the NRM Parliamentary Caucus will also endorse Mr Museveni’s sole candidature.
This comes after district chairpersons, LCIII chairpersons and district speakers belonging to the ruling National Resistance Movement also endorsed President Museveni as the sole party presidential candidate for the 2021 elections.
The decision, which was taken during the NRM ULGA members’ meeting held last week at Kyankwanzi, saw members append their signatures to a petition which they forwarded to the State House.
“We the undersigned members of ULGA who include the district chairpersons, district speakers and the representatives of LCIII chairpersons here at the local government leaders at Kyankwanzi, cognizant of your continued visionary leadership and support to decentralization, your continued championing of peace and Pan Africanism, and political stability in the country, which has occasioned visible development and desirous of continuity of this, we therefore resolve thus; HE President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni accepts to stand as our sole presidential candidate in the election of 2021. We commit to mobilise and reach out to our communities to ensure that our candidate attains victory,” the petition reads.
Uganda Local Government Association comprises the district chairpersons, speakers, the LCIII chairpersons and Chief Administrative Officers. The constitution demands that civil servants remain apolitical and where they choose to join active politics, they must resign at least six months before nominations.
The CAO’s are head of civil service in the districts and their endorsement of president Museveni as sole candidate would raise serious questions about their impartiality.
