Lukwago, NUP Should Form Coalition-Analysts

Political analysts are predicting a tough five-year term for Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago. They anticipate conflict between his party the Forum for Democratic Change-FDC and the National Unity Platform- NUP party which shall dominate the council at City Hall.

Of the 44 elected councilors at Kampala Capital City Authority-KCCA, 41 are from NUP and three from the FDC.

Dr Sam Kazibwe says Lukwago, despite winning comfortably in the just concluded election, he ran the toughest campaign against NUP candidate Nabilah Naggayi which is an indicator that he is headed for tough times with party members in Council.

“From the very beginning you can see that the biggest conflict in the next five years is likely to be between the FDC and NUP within the Council”, says Dr Kazibwe.

Dr Kazibwe says the conflict will also manifest in appointments of Deputy Lord Mayor and members of the executive committee.

According to the KCCA Amendment Act 2020, the Lord Mayor is mandated to appoint a deputy Lord Mayor and three members of the executive committee that he heads. The committee has five members including the Lord Mayor and the deputy Lord Mayor.

Dr Kazibwe says there are already NUP members demanding that Lukwago appoints them on the executive committee.

In his 2016, Lukwago met a similar challenge with a majority FDC council, Lukwago, then-Democratic Party-DP-leaning independent declined the call to appoint his deputy from the FDC and instead appointed Sarah Kanyike from DP.

But Dr Kazibwe says Lukwago needs to incorporate NUP Members in his cabinet to create a smooth working relationship because they are the majority in the council.

Although the Lord Mayor no longer chairs the house, his committee receives reports from the technical wing and reports to the Council. This means that final decisions are made in the council.

Lukwago’s committee cannot influence outcomes but only make suggestions or recommendations.

Dr Sabiiti Makara, a lecturer of Political Science at Makerere University says Lukwago has no option other than to form a coalition between him, members of his party, and NUP.

“I think Lukwago needs to incorporate a good number of NUP people into his cabinet. For example, the deputy Lord Mayor has to come from NUP and also key positions like Infrastructure like Finance are also given to NUP. He doesn’t have any option apart from to make a coalition government” says Prof. Makara.

The NUP spokesperson Joel Sennyonyi says they haven’t engaged Lukwago on the composition of his executive committee but will leave him to exercise his mandate.

Lukwago says he will work with NUP members because they have the same aspirations which are serving the people of Kampala. He, however, says KCCA has different entities and some laws guide how results are achieved and that should be respected.

He says the talk about majority and minority shouldn’t happen but rather all parties should seek to achieve the goal of KCCA.

Currently, the Deputy Lord Mayor and two members of the executive committee Olive Namazzi are FDC while Moses Kataabu at the time of his appointment was DP but later joined NUP last year and was re-elected as councillor Kampala Central 1 on the NUP ticket.