Uganda: Plum Is Not Plu, but Welcomes Gen. Muhoozi As Its Presidential Candidate
Kampala — Cankara Moses Mwaka, the chief promoter of the Patriotic League of Uganda Movement (PLUM) has said he welcomes Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba to join them as they register the political party.
In an interview with Uganda Radio Network, Mwaka said although Gen. Muhoozi heads the Patriotic League of Uganda-PLU, it is just a civic organization that cannot become a political party.
“This PLUM is going welcome everybody,” Mwaka said. “If Gen. Muhoozi wants to contest for the president in 2031, we welcome him to join us. We shall support his candidature. We are currently assembling a team and I can assure you we are going to have the best team.”
Yesterday a letter written on 9th October by Mwaka to the Chairman of the Electoral Commission made rounds on social media.
The letter was asking the Commission to reserve a name, colours, symbols and slogan for the Patriotic League of Uganda Movement. The letter that was received and stamped by the Electoral Commission asks for a review of the political party registry to confirm the availability and protection of the name, colour symbols and slogan of the intended party.
“We look forward for your written clearance and guidance on the required application schedules to assemble our national founders registers,” the letter signed by Mwaka reads in part.
In the interview Mwaka was asked whether he was not aware of the existence of another organization with almost identical names.
“There is no confusion because PLU is a civic organization which is recognised and registered by the Uganda Registrations Service Bureaus,” mwaka said. “But ours is intended to be a political party registered under the EC. Therefore, there is a great difference between PLU and PLUM.” Quoting the Political Parties and Organizations Act, Mwaka said even if PLU wanted to register as a political party, the law does not allow them.
“We have taken this step of registering PLUM as a political party because the current legal system does not allow PLU to register as a political party,” he explained. “It is a civic organization. Therefore, there is no contradiction whatsoever. We have written to the EC to reserve the name, colour, symbol and slogan and we hope they will respond very soon so that we can kick off the exercise of registering the party. I want to assure Ugandans that we are going to secure this name.”
He also disclosed that he has received a number of calls from concerned PLU members including its Secretary General Twalla Fadil. However, he would not go in the details of what was discussed.
“Let everyone calm down,” Mwaka said. “This is a new born baby; it is a health child. Let everyone including those in the civic organization join it.”
Efforts to speak to Twalla Fadil were futile as he did not respond to calls to his known number.
