The ruling party, the National Resistance Movement (NRM), last week recorded its second consecutive defeat during parliamentary by-elections held in the Lango sub-region.
NRM’s candidate Janet Rose Adongo Elau lost to Sarah Nyangkoir of the Uganda People’s Congress Party, despite intense support from the party headquarters.
Jacob Ocen, a prominent NRM cadre in Lango and also the party spokesperson for Lira City, attributed the loss to inadequate engagement of NRM MPs from Lango and poor coordination by the team from the Secretariat led by Rosemary Sseninde, the NRM Director of Mobilization.
According to Ocen, most NRM MPs from Lango opted not to go to Dokolo to campaign for their party candidate for fear of frustrating Dr. Rosemary Alwoch (the FDC candidate), claiming it would breach their allegiance to the late Cecilia Ogwal.
“80% of NRM MPs from Lango who I spoke to told me they could not go to Dokolo to campaign for their flag bearer because of the close relationship they had with Imat Cecilia’s family, whose daughter was in the race. I also find it a bit logical because these MPs expressed their love to Imat when she passed on,” Ocen said.
Ocen added that even the few MPs who went to Dokolo, including the Government Chief Whip Denis Hamson Obua and Health Minister Dr. Jane Aceng Ocero, only went to welcome the president, not with intent to campaign for the NRM flag bearer.
He further faulted the team from the Secretariat led by Sseninde, claiming they were very arrogant.
“They didn’t give an ear to the local leadership of the NRM in Dokolo, the people who knew more about the place,” Ocen said.
Ocen added that the stepping down of independent candidate Dr. Grace Lalam from the race two days before the election for the NRM candidate was not impactful.
“The NRM leadership realized their mistake when the declaration was two hours away. There is no way Dr. Lalam would traverse five sub-counties and 33 parishes to undo the damages she had already caused the NRM flag bearer,” argued Mr. Ocen.
Nyangkori scored a total of 23,044 votes, while NRM’s candidate emerged second with 14,001 votes, the late Cecilia Ogwal’s daughter, Dr. Alwoc (FDC), came in third with 8,168 votes, and NUP’s candidate, Harriet Agenorwot, secured a paltry 727 votes, largely below the invalid votes.
