OPPOSITION TAKES ENTEBBE SEAT IN BY ELECTION
In what can only be described as a resounding victory has the opposition Democratic Party candidate taken the Entebbe municipality seat for parliament, after the High Court had declared the election results of the February general election as null and void due to the omission by the Electoral Commission of a number of polling stations when declaring those results at the time.
Muhammed Kawuma beat the ruling NRM party candidate by a margin of more than 2 to 1 with other candidates hardly registering on the percentage scale. Political observers felt that this election victory for one of the opposition parties was also a vote against what has largely been perceived as indifference by government over the continued challenges of inflation, devaluation of the Uganda Shilling, the Mabira saga and a range of other controversial decisions by government since the elections earlier this year. Said a regular contributor and staunch NRM supporter to this correspondent last night when the results were officially confirmed: We at NRM need to redouble our efforts now. We won the last elections by a very large margin but it seems we are now seen by many as too removed from the problem of ordinary Ugandans, as not caring enough about inflation, sugar prices, fuel cost, electricity shortages and so forth. We need an open internal party debate on policy priorities to restore our popularity. Lets not fool ourselves, our big guns were all campaigning in Entebbe for our candidate and yet opposition ran away with a big victory. We have to convince the electorate again that we care and we are taking the plight of our people very seriously. We must not be seen like acting in isolation of public opinion and be aloof of all the problems people have in their daily life. And we should really feel bad now as a party that Entebbe, where our State House is and our President lives, has fallen to the opposition again, let it be a lesson for us. Watch this space.
