By Samuel Kamugisha
Six days to the March 19th guild presidential election at Makerere University, it’s now clear that the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) has failed to front a candidate.
FDC, the party which brought the outgoing guild president Ann Adeke will not be represented on the ballot paper in the next Wednesday poll.
On February 26th, the party president, Mr. Mugisha Muntu was the chief witness in an event that saw Andrew Mujinya declared the party’s flag bearer.
Mujinya, a second year student of Computer Science and the former academic affairs minister in the Adeke administration beat Lillian Aber, Chark Benson, Marjorine Naula Bole and Edgar Tushabe to become the flag bearer.
Independent Aber
However, Lillian Aber, a second year student of Arts in Arts and the former information minister in the Adeke administration was nominated as an independent candidate, two days after she and the losers in the FDC primaries pledged support for Mujinya.
She ‘defiantly’ continued using party colours and symbols
What then happened to Mujinya?
Mujinya was supposed to return his nomination forms to the Electoral Commission (EC) on Saturday March 1st. However, Lillian Aber who lost to Mujinya in the primaries petitioned the EC citing Mujinya’s failure to have a normal academic progress.
Mujinya scored a total of 46% in a course unit called Logic Planning (CSC 1209). He however applied for a conceded pass that the dean of the School of Computing and Informatics Technology (SCIT), Dr. Josephine Nabukenya approved on behalf of the SCIT board. The office of the Academic Registrar could however not validate the conceded pass by Friday March 7th.
On Saturday March 1st, Chark Benson was declared the official flag bearer after it became apparent that Mujinya would not stand. Chark would hold the flag as Mujinya continued to struggle to have his name cleared. Chark however seemed not ready to compete in guild race.
By Friday March 7th when Mujinya’s chances of taking part in the race were fully unthinkable, Chark had finally cowed out of the race.
Is Aber independent or FDC?
Though former guild president rushed to ask Makerereans to rally behind Aber, claiming she is the FDC candidate, the EC recognises her not as FDC but as an independent as per the nomination.
FDC will therefore not be able to replace their own, Ann Adeke in the Wednesday March 19th poll.
