Ono Bwino can exclusively report that Dr Gerald Siranda is under pressure from the party leadership and supporters to resign as Democratic Party (DP) Secretary General over political and monetary deals he sealed with flamboyant Speaker of parliament Annet Anita Among.
Siranda’s troubles exploded when he praised Among as the best speaker of parliament Uganda ever has noting that she is going to remain the speaker even in the coming parliament at the burial of the Speaker’s mother-in-law in Buyende district.
Before he went into hiding and even switched off his known phone numbers, Siranda defended himself at one of the DP leaders WhatsApp groups that he was misquoted noting that the statement he made was not targeting his boss Norbert Mao who has also declared interest to contest for the seat.
He explained to fellow leaders that Among forced him to make a speech at the burial and he did not think that he was being recorded but his defence further annoyed Mao supporters who insisted that he should resign because he betrayed the party and its top leadership interests.
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“We know Siranda is facing financial difficulties like any other Ugandan. Before going to the burial, he approached Mao and he was given Shs6m to solve his urgent problems after telling him that money lenders were on his neck yet he had relatives who are sick and he needed money urgently,” one of the DP leaders told this reporter.
Apart from financial issues, Siranda is also fighting for his political survival especially to retain his position as one of Uganda’s representative to the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) and he knows that supporting Among is more realistic if he is to achieve his goal unlike supporting Mao whose chances of winning the speakership seat are minimal.
Ono Bwino has learnt that Mao who is also the DP president general has been shielding Siranda on a number of allegation including conniving with a National Resistance Movement (NRM) top leader to compromise the system to make sure that DP candidate Joram Mpande Kigenyi is disqualified from the contest for the position of eastern Uganda Member of Parliament representing the elderly where Ofwono Opondo was declared unopposed.
Siranda has also been dragged into allegations of mismanaging the party properties including selling the party printing machine and mismanaging the party funds but it is always Mao who pleads his case before other leaders urging them to hold on until the election period expires so that he solves the issues internally.
Mao was very bitter with his henchman Kennedy Mutenyu the party’s election chairperson who declared and directed him with immediate effect to cease fire and compromised his return to the party headquarters at Balintuma Road where Siranda had earlier expelled him from.
Mao also faces another fight from his national vice president Fred Mukasa Mbidde who accused him of shifting from the gentleman’s agreement they agreed upon to support him to succeeded him in 2030.
This is the reason why Mbidde is clandestinely supporting Siranda and it is the reason why he is also publicly supporting Among to become parliament speaker again.
Sources claim that Among promised that she will use her influence to compromise the system so that he is appointed a minister in charge of the East African community in president Museveni’s coming cabinet.
However, because of the internal pressure, Mbidde assured fellow party leaders that he has ceased fire against Mao after Mao ignored both of them.
He is no longer talking to them aftet claiming that responding to them is a political tactic his opponent deployed to divert him from his main goal of becoming the next speaker of parliament.
Ono Bwino has learnt that Mbidde accused Mao of being reluctant in influencing President Museveni to appoint him a minister in his outgoing cabinet or giving him a juicy government job as they were agreed in their Memorandum of Understanding during their political marriage.
This website has established that Mbidde is among the opposition people who Museveni doesn’t trust, and it will be very difficult for him to appoint him a minister even though he is struggling to lobby as he did when he was contesting to be one of Uganda’s representatives to the East African Legislative Assembly.
