KAMPALA, Uganda | The Member of Parliament for Nyendo-Mukungwe Constituency and also the Commissioner of Parliament, Mathias Mpuuga, has criticized the National Unity Platform party for obstructing chances of how the country could get a meaningful free and fair election process.

Mpuga made the remarks while addressing the belated Women’s Day celebrations for Masaka City at Evergreen Park. He expressed that the NUP party’s stand against the proposed constitutional and electoral reforms was a serious obstacle in the pursuit of free and fair elections as one of the available modest options for causing political change.

He revealed that as the leading opposition party, the NUP had an opportunity to champion logical amendments in the election laws ahead of the next election, and the chance was lost in what he describes as petty squabbles. Mpuga said that his disappointment is the failure of the opposition side to push the government for a harmonized national voters’ register and obtain national assurance for a peaceful election.

Mpuga, who is currently under a new political movement, the Democratic Alliance, further urged the women council leaders in Masaka not to lose their political momentum over the wasted energies and efforts they invested in mobilizing for the establishment of NUP, adding that women leaders should summon high levels of commitment to remobilize their communities for a meaningful political transition.

However , the National Unity Platform Secretary General, David Lewis Rubongoya, says that the party leadership is currently engaged in strengthening its support base and has no time for what he says are distractions from deceitful political groups.

In a statement issued by the National Unity Platform, they acknowledged that there is a need for a country to have better laws and policies, including electoral reforms. The people of Uganda should not bank their hopes on any legislative reforms under President Museveni and that the NRM would use their manufactured numbers to block any meaningful reforms and predictably use the opportunity to bring in other laws that further defraud and defeat democratic rule.