The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kabale, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Alliance for National Transformation (ANT) party presidential candidate Major General Gregg Mugisha Muntu has attributed the party’s huge loss in the recent general election to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Muntu got 65,334 votes (0.65 per cent) of the total votes cast in a race that was won by the National Resistance Movement (NRM) party candidate Yoweri Museveni, according to results released by the Electoral Commission. The results show that Museveni polled 5,851,037 votes, representing 58.64 per cent of the votes and was followed by National Unity Platform’s -NUP Robert Kyagulanyi with 3,475,298 votes, representing 34.83 per cent of the total votes cast.
While NUP and other political parties won Parliamentary and District council seats, the Alliance for National Transformation did not win any parliamentary seat, and only won only one district leadership position in Terego district. But Muntu told a meeting convened this morning to review the party’s performance in the Kigezi region, that the loss was not surprising.
According to Muntu, the ANT style of mobilizing grassroots support which they had started in 2019 failed due to the preventive measures that were put in place to control the spread of the pandemic. He says that at the time when the party was supposed to mobilise voters, it was unable to hold meetings and create village structures that would make the party very strong.
Muntu says that the pandemic was also aided by voter bribery, especially by the ruling NRN party and harassment of the people, by security personnel. But, he hastens to add that it is not too late for the party to resume grassroots structure mobilization to fully prepare for the 2026 general elections.
Bonny Tumuranze, the ANT Coordinator for Kigezi sub region says that the aim of the ongoing review across the country is to discuss means of branding and marketing, the challenges party candidates and supporters faced during elections as well as generating ideas for their five-year strategic plan.
The review meeting is ongoing at Heras Country Resort in Kabale district for the rest of today, before moving to Mbarara, in the Ankole region on Tuesday.
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