OMORO: President Museveni has picked former Speaker of Parliament Jacob L’Okori Oulanyah’s son, Andrew Ojok, as the flag bearer for the National Resistance Movement-NRM party in the Omoro County By-election.
This followed a meeting the President held with NRM aspirants on Tuesday evening at his country home in Rwakitura.
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The meeting came at the backdrop of a failed attempt to resolve a stand-off between aspirants and NRM party leaders on the choice of a sole flag bearer for Omoro County.
Ojok is one of five people who want to run for parliament to replace his father, who died.
The other aspirants are Ben Acellam, Omoro District Chairperson Douglas Peter Okello, Francis Rwotlonyo, Richard Bongowat Luganya, and Andrew Olal.
Sources who attended yesterday’s meeting intimated to Uganda Radio Network-URN in an interview Wednesday that the President first met each of the aspirants before meeting them jointly for about an hour.
The source said that the President told the candidates that Oulanyah hadn’t finished his term in Parliament, so his son should be able to run unopposed.
He also said that the President said that Oulanyah’s son should be able to run, no matter how much political experience he has. He could be challenged in the 2026 general election.
The source told URN that they were not forced. The source told URN that Oulanyah had not finished his term and requested that if we accepted his request, we allow Ojok to go unopposed, but also, if we see a problem with it, he would call for the primary election.
He notes that, being cadres, and given that the request came from the President, all the aspirants unanimously stepped down from the race and promised to support Ojok’s candidature.
“You know, if the principal has spoken, we can’t defy him as carders,” he said.
The NRM Party Secretary-General is expected to announce the sole candidature of Ojok this morning from the party’s headquarters in Kyadondo.
The electoral commission has set May 26 as the date for the by-election in Omoro County.
According to the Electoral Commission road map, the nomination of candidates will take place from May 12th to May 13, 2022, at Omoro District Council Hall. The campaigns will take place from May 16th to May 24th, 2022.
The Omoro County Parliamentary seat fell vacant following the death of former legislator Oulanyah on March 20 at a hospital in Seattle, United States of America. By the time of his demise, Oulanyah was on his fourth term as Omoro County Legislator, having made his first shot in 2001-2006, and later from 2011 to 2022.
