NUP MPs leave retreat divided after failing to agree on the Leader of Opposition post.

Members of Parliament elect from the National Unity Platform (NUP) are in a bitter split after failing to agree on several leadership posts in Parliament.

NUP party, which has 61 MPs in the new Parliament, will officially take over from the FDC as the largest Opposition political party and will therefore appoint the Leader of Opposition.

Other than the Leader of Opposition, a position provided for under Article 81 of the 1995 Constitution as amended in 2005, there are nine other positions in parliament that NUP is set to take up. These include the Opposition Chief Whip, and leadership of the four accountability committees; the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Committee on Commissions Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE), Local Government Accounts Committee (LGAC), and Committee on Government Assurances.

Last week NUP went into a retreat in Jinja to discuss these positions however they failed to reach consensus after the party president, Hon Robert Kyagulanyi derailing the retreat into discussing loyalty.

Kyagulanyi made the MPs to swear their loyalty to him and his party instead of concentrating on the real matters that took them into a retreat. This left many disappointed and according to our source, Mathias Mpuuga almost stormed out of an indoor meeting after Kyagulanyi refusing to appoint him Leader of Opposition.

Kyagulanyi has instead instituted a committee which will be responsible for handpicking people to fill the mentioned positions a decision which has left many wondering why they were taken into the retreat for they were not allowed to discuss about such matters.

The committee, according to sources who attended the closed-door session during the retreat in Jinja on Saturday, has been given two weeks to revert to the members with a detailed report in their next retreat.

“This was a contentious issue and members were divided on whom to back. Some of them want [Rebecca] Kadaga (Speaker of Parliament), others openly fronted Opposition candidate Ssemujju Nganda (of Forum for Democratic Change) and now this committee will help settle this stalemate,” the source revealed.

The modus operand of selecting leaders in NUP has on several occasions been criticized for encouraging corruption. It should be remembered that in 2020 NUP instituted a committee to handpick flag bearers basing on their credentials however the flags were given to those who paid the highest amount of money.

Many analysts believe instituting a committee to select MPs to take up several posts in the 11^th parliament is a form of opening a bidding process for the highest bidders.

They add that Kyagulanyi wouldn’t just pick MPs to fill these positions without collecting from them.