SPEAKER RACE: NRM not yet decided on who will be their candidate

The battle of who will be the next Speaker of the 11^th parliament has already heat up as three candidates have expressed their intentions to take up the job. These include; incumbent Rebecca Kadaga, her deputy Jacob Oulanyah and Ssemujju Nganda.

Although MPs elect the speaker and deputy speaker of parliament, the ruling NRM party happens to be the ‘decider’ of who takes the jobs since it commands the majority number of the Members of Parliament. Therefore the race for parliament’s top job will be mainly between Kadaga and Oulanyah.

This week controversy rocked parliament as different sections of MPs took sides with Government Chief Whip Ruth Nankabirwa telling off Kadaga to step down for Oulanyah and respect the 2016 NRM Central Executive Committee (CEC) meeting decision where President Museveni allegedly convinced Oulanyah to step down and give Kadaga a chance to serve one more term.

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Kadaga responded by asking Nankabirwa to back off the talk CEC as they are discussing issues of the House not CEC.

Minister Godfrey Kiwanda who is the NRM Vice chairperson for the Central region has revealed that NRM CEC is yet to make any decision on who will be their candidate for the top job in parliament.

He says the clash between Kadaga and Oulanyah camps is unnecessary because the 10^th parliament cannot discuss who is going to be speaker for the 11^th parliament.

CEC is the most powerful organ when it comes to top jobs in Parliament and the Government. CEC comprises President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, the NRM chairperson, First National Vice-chairperson Moses Kigongo and 2nd National Vice-chairperson female, Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga and six regional vice-chairpersons namely the Deputy Speaker Jacob Oulanyah (North), Musa Ecweru (East), Chris Baryomunsi (West), Godfrey Kiwanda (Central), Singh Katongole (Kampala) and Simon Peter Aleper for Karamoja.

This year 529 MPs are expected to vote for the parliament’s top jobs and with the ruling NRM having over 300 MPs, the candidate who CEC endorses is most likely to win the race.