LANDS minister Daniel Omara Atubo has defended his participation in the National Resistance Movement (NRM) primaries, saying it does not mean he has crossed to the party.
Atubo, who was elected as an independent to the eighth Parliament, was on Tuesday elected as NRM flag-bearer for the MP for Otuke county seat after defeating his former political assistant, Kenneth Olelo, and a Makerere University student, Milton Ocen.
Atubo told New Vision that he would legally be deemed to have crossed to the Movement when he is sworn in as an NRM MP in 2011.
There are about 40 independents in the current Parliament. The number is expected to rise in the next one.
According to the Constitution and the Parliamentary Elections Act, an MP who crosses to another party other than that in which one was elected automatically loses his or her seat.
“I have not crossed. I am still an independent in the eighth Parliament. But I am saying for the next Parliament, I will contest under the NRM party. You cannot refuse me from exercising my right of freely choosing a party I want to belong to,” Atubo said.
Electoral Commission (EC) chairman Eng. Badru Kiggundu said: “We had not yet got time as a commission to sit down, analyse and get a common position on the independents. It (independents) is a very fluid category.”
The Attorney General and justice minister, Khiddu Makubuya, said he did not think the law prohibited independents from participating in party primaries.“I don’t think it does, but I will need to crosscheck and see what the actual letter of the law is.”
His deputy, Fred Ruhindi, said there could be a special arrangement between the NRM and the independents contesting in the primaries.
Another MP, Alfred Onzima, who was recently expelled from the FDC, also voted in the NRM primaries but he did not stand as a candidate.
