The rivalry between the top leaders in the Democratic Party Norbert Mao and Betty Nambooze has hit a crescendo following Mao’s desperate effort to try to get the outspoken Mukono municipality MP to abandon her planned Buganda conference.
According to DPs Deputy publicity Secretary Alex Waiswa, Mao made an eleventh hour decision to go to Nambooze’s home in Mukono to try to plead with her to abandon the conference after rebuffed mao’s pleas.
Nambooze contends that under Mao’s leadership, DP has been deliberately weakened to the extent that some of its members feel comfortable and almost indistinguishable from the ruling NRM Party.
Nambooze also accuses Mao and his colleague ally Mukasa Mbidde of ‘delivering’ DP to the ruling NRM, failing to fill vacant positions within the party and failing to convene a national conference which she says is in breach of the party’s Constitution.
She decided to host a conference this Friday March 31, for Buganda region as a way to resurrect the party under a campaign dubbed ‘Make DP Greater Again’
Nambooze said: “We have vacant positions that must be filled since the death of some of the party’s leaders including the Secretary General Mathias Nsubuga Birekerawo, and Susan Namaganda, the former deputy women’s leader. But these are part of the functions of Delegates Conference which Mao’s administration has deliberately and consistently refused to convene,” argues Nambooze.
“We actually needed the Delegates Conference yesterday to accord DPs wider membership an opportunity to put Mao and Mbidde on a weighing scale and decide their fate regarding the future leadership of the party,” Nambooze added.
“Mao and Mbidde have conspired to sell DP to President Museveni and the problem is that Mao is bent on chasing out of the party everyone who comes out to complain,” Nambooze said adding: “But as far as I am concerned, one is not a DP member by just being present in a meeting somewhere but by conviction.”
Nambooze’s “Make DP Great Again” has largely taken many in DP and indeed in the political circles by surprise. She cites Mbidde’s recent appearance along with President Yoweri Museveni as one visible sign of the sell out.
The Sunrise has reliably learnt that Mao’s pleas have so far fallen on deaf ears as the Mukono MP is hell bent on pulling off the event to rejuvenate Uganda’s oldest political Party.
But sources in Nambooze’s camp based at London Chambers in Kampala, the move is part of her ambitious plan to unseat Mao from leadership of the party and become its first ever female President General.
Mao and Mbidde have warned her to abandon the planned meeting or face disciplinary action.
“As far as we are concerned the Buganda conference stands called off” Mbidde told The Sunrise.
He was echoed by DP’s President Nobert Mao who told The Sunrise that he was still optimistic about Nambooze’s change of heart.
” I assured Honorable Nambooze that the National Executive Committee would flag off her activities but but first she has to coordinate her program with the Party’s National Strategic plan. We expect that in the interest of Party unity, better coordination and harmony, the proposed meeting will be called off,” But Mao added.
“If they go ahead and defy our orders, it will be then that we shall respond appropriately,” he added.
Other touchy issues being raised by Nambooze, include the Ushs400m Mao this quarter and his cohorts received from government but is not seen to being used in a profitable way. Those in Nambooze’s faction argue that the money should be used to finance all the mandatory party activities like filling vacant positions.
