DP struggling to get signatures for Mao’s presidential bid

Kampala, Uganda |  THE INDEPENDENT |   The Democratic Party has appealed to its members to support their President General Norbert Mao to secure signatures and National Identification Numbers-NINs to cement his Presidential Bid. 

According to the DP Electoral Commission, whoever gets elected as the President General of the party, automatically becomes the party candidate in the presidential race. Mao is among the more than 80 aspirants who picked nomination forms to challenge President Yoweri Museveni. 

Each of the aspirants is required to present at least 100 signatures from 2/3 of the districts across the country. Uganda currently has 146 districts, implying that a candidate is required to have signatures from at least 96 districts, before their nomination. Each of the seconders is expected to be a registered voter with a National Identification Number. 

DP spokesperson Enock Opio told journalists in Kampala that Mao’s team is on the search for signatures and they have decided to go through the District Party Chairpersons to reach out to party members so that they may support the process. 

The current roadmap indicates that presidential candidates will be nominated on November 2, and 3 and campaigns will run from November 10, 2020, up to January 8, 2021. Opio said that they so far have more than two million signatures which he calls a good start. 

Opio adds that the party’s national election organizing secretariat has so far confirmed 290 flag bearers for different parliamentary seats. He said that unlike other parties which have only offered to pay nomination fees for their flag bearers, the party has secured enough money  to also sponsor candidates’ campaign posters.

But, when asked about the source of the funding, Opio said that for ‘strategic reasons’, the party is not willing to reveal the identities and source of their funding.

At the same conference, the Uganda Young Democrats, through their president Ismail Kirya called for a reconsideration of the decision by the government to reopen schools saying that the decision should be postponed to enable schools and parents have more time to prepare themselves. They argue that although most government employees have the capacity to pay school fees and transport their children back to schools, most Ugandans in rural areas were caught off-guard 

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