‘NUP founders’ run to EC challenging Bobi Wine’s appointment as party president, seek to ‘regain party’

A group of people claiming to be founders of the NURDP party have challenged the manner in which Kyadondo East MP Robert Kyagulanyi acquired the party that morphed into the National Unity Platform (NUP).

In Jul 2020, Bobi Wine unveiled NUP at an event attended by Moses Nkonge Kibalama, a co-founder of National Unity, Reconciliation and Development Party (NURDP).

Kibalama agreed a NURDP’s delegates conference had okayed the change of the hitherto obscure party.

Profile: Who is Moses Kibalama Nkonge, People Power’s Bobi Wine NUP Ally

Since its change of name was announced, NUP has been in a battle for party color, with the Electoral Commission (EC) and the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC), insisting the Bobi Wine-led party should desist from using red as its main color.

Read: EC boss Byabakama breaks silence on row over Bobi Wine’s NUP party color

Through their lawyer James Byamukama, a group claiming to be founders of NURDP says the change of the party’s name, color and symbol was illegal and contravened its constitution and national laws.

In their petition to the EC chairperson Justice Simon Byabakama and his commission, the ‘founders’ further claim that Bobi Wine got the party’s nomination as presidential candidate in 2017, years before the nomination process even started..

This, they argue, was illegal, and contrary to NURDP’s constitution and the laws of the land.

They also punched holes in the July 14 delegates conference that “rubber stamped” Bobi Wine’s appointment as party president, saying only 51 of the 400 delegates were in attendance.

According to their lawyer, the founders say they want “restore control of the party to its rightful founders and members.”

They now want the EC to declare the transfer of NURDP to Bobi Wine illegal or wait for a court battle.