New rules to pick NRM candidates

The National Resistance Movement party delegates meeting at Namboole stadium has overwhelmingly resolved to adopt universal adult suffrage system as a basis of carrying out party primary elections.

The decision will see the party spend huge amounts of money in holding internal primaries, President Museveni admitted.

Fate of independents
It also means that candidates will now have to run to their constituents to seek endorsement as the party’s flag bearer unlike before when the system of electoral colleges dictated that designated delegates pick the party’s candidate.

The decision followed heated discussion on ways to avoid party members from standing as independent candidates if rigged out of primaries. At the 2006 general elections, hundreds of party faithful stood as independents claiming that the NRM primaries had been rigged.

The idea of universal adult suffrage was then mooted as a solution to the question of independents.
In closed discussions Mr Museveni is understood to have warned delegates of the consequences of the decision, and reportedly said the system of universal adult suffrage would cost at least Shs5.7 billion unlike the electoral colleges where Shs4 billion would be spent on elections.
Delegates also agreed that party candidates will hold joint campaigns instead of individual campaigns.

Account opened
Mr Museveni also announced that the party’s Central Executive Committee had resolved to open a joint party bank account where each member will voluntary contribute money to be used in organising the primaries.

Some amendments, which delegates were anxiously waiting for like a proposal to bar the party’s secretary general from occupying a ministerial position, did not surface. That idea had been proposed by Capt. Mike Mukula.

Party Secretary General, Amama Mbabazi explained that some amendments “arrived late” and could not get considered.
Rukungiri LC5 chairman Zedekia Katono Karokora had also proposed that officials tainted by corruption be barred from running for public office but his proposal did not also see the light of day.

Although the delegates overwhelmingly approved adult suffrage, they insisted that party presidential candidate, women MPs, workers, youth and persons with disabilities must get elected through electoral colleges.

Early this year, the party’s governing body, the National Executive Committee, proposed that all NRM flag bearers be elected under universal adult suffrage in a bid to reduce on vote buying which was common with the Electoral College elections previously used to elect the party flag bearers.
Also amended in the party constitution is a clause that says leaders who are elected to higher offices shall relinquish their lower office, except at the district level. The delegates also agreed to a proposal creating two regions; Kampala and Karamoja.

“Some people say that Karamoja is the north while others say that is in the east,” Mr Museveni said before moving a motion to create the two regions. “But Karamoja is a unique region with unique problems different from those of north and east.”

Proposal rejected
The delegates, however, rejected a proposal to allow the delegates conference sit once in five years instead of twice. The delegates also agreed to expand the party’s National Executive Committee and the National Conference to include East African MPs.

The district executive committees were also expanded to include Women MPs, mayors and district chairmen as ex-officials. Mr Museveni warned individuals against promoting sectarianism in the party, arguing that this practice was likely to affect the unity of the country.
“NRM is not like other parties…ours is sacrifice and our unity is in blood,” he said