
KAMPALA – Former Ethics minister Miria Matembe has announced that she will be contesting for a parliamentary seat in the 2021 elections on the elderly ticket.
Ms Matembe, who has been into activism, said she is answering God’s call to serve the people.
“I have been seeing the elderly suffering on TV. I see them crying, being chased out of the land. Children are beating them, others are being chased by their fathers. So, I have been feeling so bad and so I said surely, because me when I have a platform, I get up and fight for this people,” she said.
Parliament last week approved five seats for the elderly, one of which has been reserved for women, and it is this seat that Ms Matembe wants to occupy.
“I was inside my house and I didn’t know they were intending to bring members for elderly to Parliament. Then I saw them in Parliament debating for a national and female MP for the elderly. So, I said that this is God calling me to go and defend the cause of elderly. The elders have been crying out and I want to say that God has heard them and is calling me to go and be there voice of hope,” she added.
However, she insisted that she will only come on the Independent ticket.
“I don’t subscribe to anybody because if you are going to represent the elderly then you are representing the elderly, who else are you representing and that’s how I think it should really go for other interest groups. I thought yah, it is a calling and if it is, I will do it,” Matembe said.
Matembe has been a strong proponent for and an advocate of women’s rights in Uganda. For over two decades beginning in 1989, she was a member of Uganda’s parliament. She worked in the Ugandan government as minister for ethics and integrity from 1998 to 2003, after which time she became a member of the Pan-African Parliament representing Uganda.