Otunnu's Party Withdraws From Ugandan Coalition Over Softened Legal Stance
Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni
Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images
The Uganda Peoples Congress pulled out of a coalition seeking to defeat Museveni.
The Uganda Peoples Congress pulled out of a coalition seeking to defeat Museveni. Photographer: Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images
The Uganda Peoples Congress, an opposition party led by presidential candidate Olara Otunnu, said it pulled out of a coalition seeking to defeat President Yoweri Museveni in an election next year.
The UPC withdrew because the group of parties, known as the Inter-Party Cooperation, softened its stance on demands for changes to electoral laws, Otunnu said in an e-mailed statement today from Kampala, the capital. The coalition backed down on an earlier call to abolish Uganda’s electoral commission, which Otunnu said favors Museveni.
“We are now deeply concerned that our partners in the IPC have retreated from this clear collective position,” Otunnu said. “UPC is unable to continue working within the IPC project and process.”
Otunnu, 59, has said he plans to challenge Museveni’s 25- year rule at the February election. A May poll by the Daily Monitor newspaper showed him with 4 percent of the vote, behind Kizza Besigye, leader of the Forum for Democratic Change, who had 35 percent. Yesterday, Museveni said he would seek backing from the ruling National Resistance Movement to take extend his term in office.
Following its withdrawal from the coalition, the UPC plans to mobilize “democracy-seeking political parties, civil society, religious organizations, workers, pressure groups, youth and women organizations” into a social movement, Otunnu said.
Museveni has ruled Uganda since January 1986, when he seized power following a five-year guerrilla war against the regimes of former presidents Apollo Milton Obote and Okello Lutwa. The Ugandan leader won elections in 1996, 2001 and 2006, though the country’s Supreme Court ruled that the last two votes were marred by irregularities.
Uganda is Africa’s biggest grower of robusta coffee and is set to become an oil producer when London-based Tullow Oil Plc begins production at the Kasamene field next year. The country has an estimated 2 billion barrels of oil, with 800 million barrels already discovered, according to Tullow.
To contact the reporter on this story: Fred Ojambo in Kampala via Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.
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