Former Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) president Gen. Mugisha Muntu and his team have agreed with the Electoral Commission (EC) onthe name for the new party which will be launched. The EC spokesperson, Jotham Taremwa, informed Ugandanz News Website yesterday that they agreed on the party to be called Alliance for National Transformation (ANT).
Following the requirements outlined in Section 7 of the Political Parties and Organisations Act, Muntu’s team on November 28, 2018 submitted the signatures collected from various parts of the country to the EC.
The law requires that for a party to be registered, its promoters have to gather at least 50 signatures of registered voters from atleast two-thirds of all the districts in the country. Taremwa said after Muntu’s team had submitted the signatures, the EC, on November 30, 2018, wrote to all returning officers instructing them to verify the particulars of the names of voters.
Asked when they were likely to complete the process of verification and issue a registration certificate for the new Opposition party, Taremwa said:
“We told the returning officers to do the verification of the names within one month. So, the verification will be done up to the end of this month of December.”
This means the new opposition party will not be launched this month as its promoters had earlier promised.
“We have up to December 31, 2018, to complete the verification process and receive field reports. They have to wait up to the beginning of January next year,” Taremwa explained.
The EC spokesperson said they would issue the certificate of registration for the new party as soon as the verification process has been completed. Former FDC vice-president for eastern region Alice Alaso, who is one of the architects of the new party, said they had initially submitted nine names for the EC to choose from.
Both Muntu and Alaso confirmed to us that they had successfully collected the required signatures and submitted them to the EC for their party to be registered. Asked whether it would be possible to launch the party this month as he had earlier promised, Muntu said:
“Our plan was to launch the party this month, but we cannot do so until the EC has completed the process of registering it. Without us being issued with a certificate of registration, we cannot launch the party.”
Muntu urged his supporters to be patient and promised that as soon as the certificate is issued, they would announce and do the launching of the party.
Asked what some of the values and principles their new party would stand for, Muntu said the party stands for justice, transparency, equity before law, fairness in dealing with public affairs and zero tolerance to corruption.
“We believe these and many other values and ideas we stand for, will help us to build a firm foundation for good governance and sound democracy in the country,” he said.
“We wait patiently for the registration process to be completed and do the launching, after which we shall roll it out to establish structures at all levels. Most of the top architects of the new party have broken away from the FDC party, which is currently the leading opposition party in the country.
Credible sources revealed that the majority of the FDC Members of Parliament have subscribed to the new party. These MPs, a source revealed, will wait until a year to the next general elections before announcing their abandoning of the FDC party.
Political commentators believe that an alliance between the Alliance for National Transformation, the People Power political pressure groupled by Kyadondo East MP Robert Kyagulanyi and the Democratic Party is likely to render FDC irrelevant.
