2021: NRM vows to recapture Greater Kampala

Despite winning the last five presidential elections, President Museveni and NRM’s performance in Greater Kampala has been dismal.

For 2021, he wants to do something about this that is why he has deployed his energetic assistant, Milly Doka Babalanda to turn the tide.

Babalanda has started her work in ernest and last week, she represented Museveni at the commissioning of campaign coordinators for Greater Mukono which comprises Kayunga, Mukono, Buvuma and Buikwe districts.

Flagging off the team at Mukono Boarding Primary Schoo, Babalanda revealed that the Office of NRM National Chairman at Kyambogo, which she heads as PA, had been tasked to ensure there are 20 permanent residents dedicated to be Museveni’s campaigners per village.

She said each of the 20 coordinators will be tasked to deliver between 100-150 votes for Museveni in that particular village.

Assuming each of the 20 agents delivers 100 voters per village, Gen Museveni will be assured of hundreds of votes per village. In comparison, the rest of the villages in Uganda have each been assigned 5 such campaign coordinators.

Kampala, Wakiso and Mukono will have each village assigned 20 coordinators because they are considered hostile grounds requiring a lot of effort to neutralise.

Babalanda, closely working with ministers and CEC members in each of these regions or districts, is on a countrywide tour to ensure all these campaign coordinators for Museveni are trained on what is expected of them and what must be done in order for them to deliver the required assignment against the opposition.

During the meeting, the minister of State for Water Ronald Kibuule vowed to do everything possible to ensure that the Bobi Wine-led opposition doesn’t wrestle any of the Greater Mukono districts away from NRM.

The Mukono RDC Fred Bamwine told the meeting that once intrigue is overcome, he has no doubt NRM will retain Greater Mukono even more comfortably than it did in 2016.

As part of the training, Babalanda urged the assembled Museveni campaign coordinators to emulate the president by exhibiting high levels of discipline while resisting acting violently however much opposition supporters might provoke them.

She called for discipline, team work and pleaded with them to avoid intrigue because the ruling party desires a win not only for Gen Museveni but all the other NRM candidates for lower level positions.

“The president’s message is that let all of us avoid violence or even the use of abusive language. We must be civil while engaging those opponents we seek to convert and let’s prepare to overwhelm them with facts regarding what the mighty NRM party has done for this country,” she said.

She also urged the coordinators to closely work with LC1 chairpersons to be able to authenticate who the genuine village residents are and subsequently seek to have their relevant details such as the NIN number captured to avoid wasting time politicising and mobilising people who may not even be eligible voters for 2021.

The coordinators (who were promised adequate logistical facilitation to enable them do what largely remains a voluntary task) are also supposed to closely work with the security apparatus comprising of offices like the RDCs’ to identify vote thieves trying to engage in multiple voting or purporting to be residents of different villages.

The logistical facilitation is expected to be channeled through the office of NRM Admins available in every district with significant presence at Sub County and lower levels.

The newly-commissioned campaign coordinators were also tipped on the need to prioritise reaching out to often neglected groups like the elderly and PWDs because these have always elected Gen Museveni and other lower level NRM candidates as a block since 1996.

Babalanda revealed that a similar arrangement was in place to galvanize Museveni’s support among members of the business community and boda boda riders in all small towns comprising Greater Mukono as will be the case elsewhere in the whole country.

Having 20 campaign coordinators per village means that to cover the entire Kampala Metropolitan Area (comprising of Kampala, Greater Mukono, Wakiso and some parts of Mityana, Mpigi & Luwero), the Museveni team will have to deploy at least 343,665 persons (approximately 400,000) to have adequate presence.

The areas being targeted are home to millions of voters and significantly contributed to the more than 3.5m votes FDC’s Dr. Kizza Besigye garnered in 2016.

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