Second IPOD summit to be held in Lira

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The second Inter-party Organisation for Dialogue (IPOD) summit will be held next week in Lira district.

Frank Rusa, the Executive Secretary of IPOD and country representative of Netherland Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD), says taking the summit to Lira is meant to ensure Ugandans appreciative IPOD activities.

Rusa also says that the third summit will be taken to another region.

IPOD brings together political parties represented in parliament. Current IPOD members are; Democratic Party (NRM), National Resistance Movement (NRM), Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), Uganda Peoples’ Congress (UPC) and Justice Forum (JEEMA).

The IPOD summit brings together political parties’ leaders and the council is a forum of secretary generals of political parties. The council executive is responsible for proposing ideas and drafting documents which are later submitted to the summit of leaders for approval.

The first summit was held in December last year at Speke Resort, Munyonyo. It was attended by all party leaders, except FDC’s Patrick Oboi Amuriat and his delegation.

FDC snubbed the summit for what they called harassment by government security agencies.

Amuriat argued that they could not sit on the discussion table with their tormentors.

FDC has in the past weeks been unclear on whether they will attend the third summit.

Questions pointed to FDC’s Deputy Secretary-General, Harold Kaija who represented the party at IPOD council meeting were rather awkwardly answered by Democratic Party’s Secretary General, Gerald Siranda.

Siranda who is the current IPOD council chairman says preparations are on-going and all parties including FDC’s Amuriat and his delegation are expected to attend.

The IPOD council has in the past weeks been discussing new regulations that will guide implementation of the Public Order Management Act, a law FDC and other opposition parties have accused government of misusing to disrupt and disperse their meetings.

The new regulations will be presented to political parties’ leaders next week. Siranda argued that IPOD council has spent a lot of time discussing issues raised by FDC. He says FDC has also been positively participating in preparations of the second summit, an indication that they will attend.

IPOD council will in next week’s submit present a report on issues that first summit highlighted and directed them to work on. They include; improvement of public order management, proposals on a more inclusive electoral system and electoral reforms, regulatory mechanism of independent political actors-Members of Parliament and reforms on current public funding for political parties.

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