Incumbent Mityana district Woman Member of Parliament Joyce Ntwatwa Bagala has told Harriet Chemutai that National Unity Platform (NUP) Electoral Management Committee (EMC) is to blame for the ongoing embarrassment their party is going through where justice Simon Mugenyi Byabakama’s Electoral Commission is disqualifying a number of their candidates from the 2026 race.
Bagala said that since the return of political parties, NUP is the first leading opposition party to have candidates disqualified on grounds of lack of academic qualification and other related simple mistakes insisting that it shows that Chemutai and her team did a bad job.
“Due diligence was not done before giving people party tickets, because I don’t think that someone who has been supporting and giving all to the party can be easily compromised with money, withdraw from the race and cross to another political party. It means that person just joined NUP to be given a ticket so that they use it to negotiate for a good paying job or money. All this was supposed to be detected by the party’s Electoral Management Committee,” Bagala said.
She added that there were people who were given the party ticket to contest but from the onset there was proof that those people lacked academic qualifications.
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She divulged that it was shocking to see them being given the ticket, that is why some have been disqualified from the race and others are on the edge of being disqualified through courts of law even if they win.
Bagala who was denied the NUP ticket and it was given to a celebrated comedian Proscovia Mukiisa Nabbosa insisted that Chemutai cannot defend herself because was given all the time to scrutinize the people who applied for the ticket.
Bagala’s narrative was supported by lawyer Male Mabirizi who blasted NUP leaders for embarrassing the regime change seekers by fronting questionable candidates like Mathius Walukagga who was disqualified from Busiro East race yet they knew from the beginning that the man stopped in primary school.
However, sources inside NUP told this website that Chemutai is also not happy with the party’s top leaders. She accuses them of changing her team’s final list by removing people they recommended and replacing them with their friends, boyfriends and girlfriends and relatives.
John Marry Ssebuufu, a member of the Committee rubbished the narrative that they did a bad job when they failed to manage candidates to stand for the country’s young party.
He upheld that their candidates are being disqualified on political grounds.
“Walukagga has all the academic qualification to stand as an MP. Tell me how comes that someone is pursuing a degree at the university and said that same person lacks a senior six certificate? Museveni’s politics is built on fooling our people,” Ssebuufu said.
He boasted of how they highly performed by presenting highly qualified candidates who are worthy of being compromised with money by Museveni henchmen and given jobs after being intimidated to withdraw from the race.
