FDC spends Shs700m for MP nominations

In Summary

Reason. A party official says the money is meant to support candidates who cannot afford nomination fees.

KAMPALA. The Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party has paid Shs744m as nomination fees for 248 candidates vying for parliamentary seats in the 2016 general election, a party official has said.

This is the first time the party is paying nomination fees for its candidates. Mr Wilberforce Kyambadde, the executive director of the Kizza Besigye campaign bureau, said the money is meant to support candidates who cannot pay the Shs3m nomination fees yet the party is seeking to have more representatives in Parliament.

“We have paid for 233 candidates. 15 had earlier paid but we have refunded their money,” Mr Kyambadde said on Monday at the party headquarters in Najjanankumbi, a Kampala suburb.
He observed that 38 incumbent MPs have paid for themselves and the party will not refund their money.

Mr Kyambadde’s deputy, Mr Wycliffe Bakandonda, said under Power 10, a party’s initiative that seeks to recruit voters from the grassroots and use the same to guard the party’s votes from rigging in the February elections, seven million people have so far been enlisted across the country.

Commenting on violence that broke out between NRM supporters and those of Independent candidate, Mr Amama Mbabazi, FDC chairperson Wasswa Biriggwa said the Electoral Commission (EC) should take action against the NRM candidate, President Museveni.
“The EC is a walking stick of the regime…why don’t they disqualify Mr Museveni?” Mr Biriggwa asked.

Responding to the Chief of Defence Forces, Gen Katumba Wamala’s warning at the weekend that some candidates were inciting violence in their defiance campaigns, Mr Biriggwa said: “Our campaign is based on defiance, liberation, restructuring of state institutions and social-economic transformation…What we mean by defiance is, we shall not adhere to any directive that is unlawful or any law that deviates from the universal human rights.”
He appealed to well-wishers to make money contributions to the party through various platforms such as mobile money transfer services and a bank account that has been opened in Centenary Bank.

The background
In the 2011 general election, 189 candidates contested for parliamentary seats on the FDC ticket but only 38 made it to Parliament. So far, the party has spent Shs744m on candidates’ nomination fees.

ptajuba@ug.nationmedia.com