Mafabi sacks UPC, DP ministers over elections

The rift in the Opposition in Parliament was yesterday laid bare after the leader of opposition sacked the UPC and DP shadow ministers over a disagreement on EALA representation.


In yesterday’s election, official results indicated that NRM’s Dora Byamukama, Bernard Mulengani, Dan Kidega, Nusura Tiperu, Michael Kennedy Ssebalu and Margaret Zziwa would be joined by UPC’s Chris Opoka (233 votes) and DP’s Fred Mukasa Mbidde (247) as Uganda’s representatives.

The tight race for the single independents slot was won by Ms Susan Nakawuki (106), having defeated fellow former MPs Martin Wandera (95) and Ben Wacha (87).

However, Leader of the Opposition Nandala Mafabi questioned the manner in which the UPC and DP nominated members for EALA yet, “there were no consultations between the different parties.” UPC Whip and the DP Deputy Whip still sharply disagreed with him. Ms Betty Amongi, the UPC whip, was the first to object, saying UPC consulted and even reached out to the NRM for support. “I would like to put it on record that after the meeting [of all parties] in Parliament, UPC as an independent party in Parliament consulted and the party made a decision to nominate a candidate,” she said.

“We consulted with the DP President Mao and he also told us that he had consulted his fellow members and had nominated a candidate.”


And then DP chipped in.

“Democratic Party is a party on its own and its sign is a Hoe. Not a bus, not fingers or any other thing,” said Mr Joseph Ssewungu, the deputy DP Whip. “We as MPs follow what both our Party president Norbert Mao and secretary general tell us and when they met, they decided on a candidate we should support and that’s the person we presented here.”

 After failing to rally the two parties to support his proposal to block the election process, Mr Mafabi, who was accused by NRM MPs of “failing in his work as the Leader of Opposition and exposing his lack of power to manage the opposition”, stood up and announced the dismissal of the “uncooperative” parties from the shadow cabinet.

“I am now going to show you that I have power,” he said. “FDC is not going to participate in these elections and furthermore, I suspend UPC and DP from the opposition cabinet henceforth.”

He added: I thought that we were working together as opposition. Little did I know that the colleagues I was leading turned against me! I thought these were colleagues I was with in the opposition but I was wrong.”


Mr Mafabi told Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi, whom he was looking directly in the eye, to only deal with FDC as the only Opposition in Parliament. “To the Prime Minister,” said Mr Mafabi, “from now on there is only one party in the Opposition that you should deal with and that is FDC.”

Mr Odonga Otto (FDC, Aruu) accused the two parties of betrayal. “They should formally form an alliance with the NRM because we [Official Opposition] are being shot from the front and from the back,” he said.

However, the Speaker of Parliament, Ms Rebecca Kadaga, told the LOP that all MPs from the Opposition were elected from independent parties. “The MPs from DP and UPC were elected to this House on their independent tickets and they are here as such. The shadow cabinet is your business,” she said.

The sacked shadow ministers include Fr Jacinta Ogwal, UPC and minister for disaster, Benson Obua Ogwal, UPC and minister of ICT and communication and Ms Amongi, UPC.

From DP, Mr Mathias Mpuuga, the minister of corruption and presidency; Mr Medard Ssegona, the minister for justice; Ms Betty Namboze Bakireke, minister of local government, Mr Lulume Bayiga the minister for health and Mr Ssebuliba Mutumba the minister of works.
On May 22, 2012, the five opposition parties in Parliament signed a joint statement in which they committed not to nominate candidates to EALA before consensus is reached on satisfying the requirement of Article 50(i) of the EAC Treaty. The statement was read out at a press conference at the Inter-Party Cooperation headquarters.

Volvo’s self-driven car convoy treks 125 miles across Spanish motorway

Motorists may soon be able to use their cellphones while driving without fear of getting a ticket. In fact, they may be able to take their eyes off the road completely.


Volvo has successfully completed a public test of a self-driven convoy of cars. A human driver led the convoy of three self-driven vehicles, which mimicked the lead driver's actions through a wireless link.

"Driving among other road-users is a great milestone in our project. It was truly thrilling," Linda Wahlstroem, project manager for the Safe Road Trains for the Environment (SARTRE) project at Volvo Car Corp., told the BBC. "We covered 200km in one day and the test turned out well. We're really delighted."

The four vehicles completed a 125-mile voyage across a Spanish roadway traveling at an average speed of 52 mph.

You can watch a 2011 test video of the SARTRE system:



The SARTRE test was carried out as part of a European Commission research project. If offered to the public, Volvo says, the self-driving convoys could also allow commuters to "work on their laptops, read a book or sit back and enjoy a relaxed lunch" while traveling.


Of course, while the technology is exciting (the SARTRE system uses cameras, radar and laser sensors), the net effect would have some of the same drawbacks as public transportation. After all, you'd have to be traveling in the same direction as your convoy leader.

Still, Volvo says, the "road train" may be a viable future option for motorists and has added value since it would not require the development of new vehicles or roadways.

"People think that autonomous driving is science fiction, but the fact is that the technology is already here. From the purely conceptual viewpoint, it works fine and road train will be around in one form or another in the future," Wahlstroem told the BBC.

"We've focused really hard on changing as little as possible in existing systems. Everything should function without any infrastructure changes to the roads or expensive additional components in the cars."

No word on whether the SARTRE name was inspired by the French existentialist author Jean-Paul Sartre.

Winnie Byanyima: No ordinary woman

Imagine a picture captioned with “Mrs Winifred Besigye, aeronautical engineer for the Uganda Space Programme, conducting orientation for entrants to the Flight Engineers Training Workshop”. Feels strange on the tongue and mind if you are Ugandan, doesn’t it?
It gives the impression that someone other than Winnie Byanyima, Ugandan politician and women-rights activist, is the subject. Perhaps this is as it should be, because for a long time, Byanyima has been phenomenal in proving that it is only challenging, not impossible, for a woman to score successes while working with or against patriarchal structures.
Besides rather than behind
In hindsight, it seems like a deliberate branding strategy on her part for never overtly using her husband’s name to get ahead, since her 1999 marriage to retired Colonel Kizza Besigye, leader of the opposition party Forum for Democratic Change (FDC). Her example proves that women can be besides successful men, instead of behind them as the popular adage maintains.

She could have scripted her bucket list like most girls: understudy other women for the role of wife and mother; study “soft” courses if the family was either willing or able to send her to school and have many babies really quickly. She could have settled for talking about and leaving women’s issues at the village well, never dabbling in politics beyond voting passively, and generally being satisfied with whichever dream, life or her husband, allowed her to chase.


Instead, she lived the very opposite of such type-cast roles; magnetised to politics by her father’s example, studying engineering at university mainly to defy society’s expectations of girls and excelling at it and winning a scholarship. She refused the token seat and beat men in hotly-contested Women member of Parliamentary elections, spearheading censure of the corrupt, actively contributing to a guerrilla war effort when she was aged 22, being vice chairman to a group in opposition to the government she once worked for and founding, and directing, organisations devoted to bettering the circumstances of women.

Leading by example
The impact on Ugandan society and women in particular is as wide-ranging as the various facets of her personality. Where her father was once National Chairman of the Democratic Party, she ended up being the third Vice-Chair of the Reform Agenda, before it evolved into the FDC. She aided its transformation from an Elect Kizza Besigye Task Force into a party formed on July 12, 2002, aimed at achieving political reforms for good governance, sustainable national unity, democracy and national development.


Her election in 1994 to the parliamentary seat for Mbarara Municipality was one small step for her, but one giant leap for Ugandan women. At the time, she was one of the few women who stood for direct election when others were content with the seats available to them on government’s affirmative action.


“The day I was first elected, women ran out on the streets, sat in the middle of the road, they climbed on top of the cars, ululating and even taking off their tops”, she recounted in a 2004 interview with the magazine Feminist Africa.

Partly, the euphoria was because she was on the road to fulfilling her pledge to campaign for equal value in government policies for women and children. Partly, it was because she had dared Ngoma Ngime, an incumbent Constitutent Assembly delegate, on President Museveni’s own home turf.

But more than dare, she actually had beaten a sitting National Political Commissar who had the resources of the NRM’s machinery at his disposal while her strongly feminist platform seemed like political suicide and won her no favours from her party, despite her longer track record and achievements.

Leveling the political ground for women
In Parliament, she formed the Women’s Caucus, which was instrumental in creating a constitutional basis for a Uganda where the genders were equal. The women’s caucus helped shape the writing of the 1995 Constitution in gender-sensitive language.

It sponsored the inclusion of an explicit statement of equality before the law, which invalidates all other laws, cultures, traditions or customs that undermine the dignity and well-being of women, and provides affirmative action for women to redress historic imbalances. In 1995, she became a founding member and first chair of the Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE), which grew out of the caucus. FOWODE extended the caucus’ scope by promoting gender equality in all decision-making through advocacy, training research and publishing.

After two terms as Mbarara Municipality’s representative in Parliament, she voluntarily stepped down in 2004. Hers is an example very immediate as Uganda currently debates the presidential term limits.


Ironically, she has expressed interest in standing for President, come 2016. If she does, she will be the third woman, after Miria Kalule Obote in 2006 and Betty Kamya in 2011, to stand for president.

Popular opinion maintains she might be the first one with a serious chance of succeeding where even her husband has yet to.

Fact file .
Born January 1, 1957.

Married to Dr Kizza Besigye, FDC Chairman, with whom she has a son, Anselm.

Education: Mt St Mary’s College, Namagunga. Has a degree in Aeronautical Engineering, the first female Ugandan to become an Aeronautical Engineer.

Profession background: Aeronautical engineer, politician and diplomat. Byanyima worked as a flight engineer for the now defunct Uganda Airlines. She has served as the Director of the Gender Team in the Bureau for Development Policy at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) since 2006.

Political background: Byanyima is a member of the FDC party, although she has significantly reduced her participation in partisan Ugandan politics since she became a Ugandan diplomat in 2006.

Political jobs she has held over the years:

•She was a member of the Constituent Assembly that drafted the Ugandan 1995 Constitution

•She served two consecutive terms as a Member of Parliament, representing Mbarara Municipality, from 1994 until 2004.

•Appointed Director of the Directorate of Women, Gender and Development at the headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 2004. She left this for appointment at UNDP.