The parliamentary candidate’s position has been jammed up with over position 2,659 candidates competing to be elected in 2021 general polls.
However, of these, 1338 are running on independent tickets making up for slightly above 50 percent of the candidates, leaving 1,321 who will stand on party tickets.
A data report filed by the Uganda Radio Network says the National Resistance Movement (NRM) has eaten the lion’s share with 487 candidates, Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) comes in second with 281, National Unity Platform (NUP) 242, Democratic Party (DP) 120 and Alliance for National Transformation (ANT) 116.
Others are Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) 42, Justice Forum (JEEMA) 19, Ecological Party of Uganda (EPU) 5, Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) 3, and Conservative Party (CP) 2 among others.
This begs the question, why candidates are choosing to opt for independent and not political parties.
A significant number of candidates on independent chose to take that path after losing to others in the primaries of political parties.
Frank Rusa, the Executive Secretary of Interparty Organization for Dialogue (IPOD), says political parties have not perfected their internal democratic processes.
‘’So when people go in for primaries, and they feel that they have been cheated out or that the process was not fair, they feel that they stand a better chance again by standing as Independents, so there is also a problem again of internal party democracy. So most of the independents you are seeing now, are a result of processes that were disputed internally within the elections. Rusa Stated
He says that the presence of many independents in parliament also weakens party positions and enhances individual confidence.
”With the absence of the law, when we embraced multi-partyism, we continued to leave the law of independents still in the constitution, in other countries, there is no home for independents .”he added
