You will not hold meetings, Kayihura to Mbabazi

BY Joan Pounds

The Inspector General of Police Gen. Kale Kayihura has blocked former Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi from holding consultations and public meetings across the country to publicize his bid for the National Resistance Movement presidency.

Mbabazi has declared his intentions to vie for the ruling party’s top office and consequently contest for presidency in 2016 polls.

Mbabazi wrote to the Electoral Commission and the Police notifying them of his intention to hold public meetings across the country. The meetings were supposed to start on July 15.

In the letter dated June 23, Kayihura told Mbabazi that after consulting the NRM and Electoral Commission, Police found out that his intention to hold public meetings as a prospective Presidential flag bearer of the NRM was illegal.

“I refer to the letter from the Secretary General of the NRM to me and copied to you, dated June 20, 2015 stating the part position on the matter. From the letter, it is clear that your party has neither sponsored nor endorsed you as an aspirant within the meaning of the NRM constitution and law, and that you have no locus stand to hold public meetings as a prospective Presidential flag bearer of the NRM and/or Presidential aspirant and that your aspirations are illegal,” Kayihura noted.

“Accordingly, in view of the above, your programme of public meetings are not cleared by the Police and cannot go ahead as you intended until, as requested by the Chairman of the Electoral Commission, you first harmonized the position in your letter of introduction to the Electoral Commission and that of your party the NRM,” the IGP further noted.

Kayihura also said that there were other issues relating to the requirements of the Public Order Management Act which he would communicate to Mbabazi after he had showed evidence to the police that his intended public meetings are lawful.
The letter was also copied to the Prime Minister, Minister of Internal affairs, Attorney General, Chairperson Electoral Commission, and the NRM Secretary General.

Efforts to get a comment from Mbabazi were futile as his phone went answered. However, his spokesperson Benjamin Alipanga said that they were following the law and that they would go ahead with the meetings.