2021 Elections: UPC Withdraws from Presidential Race, Akena to Stand for Lira East MP

Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) has revealed that it will not front any presidential candidate in the forthcoming 2021 general elections.

Addressing journalists at the party headquarters on Wednesday, Sharon Oyat Arach, the party spokesperson said that their only would be candidate, Jimmy Akena, changed his minds and will be standing for a Parliamentary seat of Lira East instead.

“The party is focusing on gaining full positions at the grass root level like Councilors, Mayors and Members of Parliament, so we shall not have the presidential candidate,” she said.

Arach told journalists that selecting a presidential flag bearer is quite a long process since the party already held the delegates conference which chose Akena as the party president recently.

“It is a long process; names of the interested candidates have to go through the National Council which are later forwarded to the National delegates who choose a suitable candidate but as we said, right now our major aim is taking grass root positions,” she added.

She, however, rubbished reports that UPC is planning to either rally behind an opposition candidate or enter an alliance with the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM).

“UPC is an independent party and does work under any other political party so we don’t have any plans of allying with others during these polls,” she noted.

Mike Bakalu Kigongo, the party Assistant General Secretary said that the party is ready both strategically and finically for the forthcoming polls.

“We are armed to the teeth to take the net coming elections and I can assure you that we are going to handle the bull by its horns not by tails,” he said.

Kigongo bragged that the party scored highly in the recently concluded elections of the Special Interest Groups (SIGs).

“We got 538 slots from youth, 510 for People with Disabilities (PWDs) and 344 for older persons. This is a major milestone for the party and special thanks goes to all members and supporters who made the party candidates go through,” he noted.

Meanwhile, Arach also revealed that the party had changed the dates of party primaries for LC 5 Chairpersons, District Councilors, City/Division Mayors and City/Division Councilors.

The party primaries for LC 5 Chairpersons and District Councilors that were earlier on set for Friday 28th August, 2020 have been rescheduled to Saturday September 5, 2020 and the party primaries for City/Division Mayors and City/Division Councilors will take place on Thursday September 3, at their respective electoral units across the country.

She noted that this revision has been done following the revised road map for nomination of Candidates for Local Government elections from 7th -17th September to new dates of 21st September to 1st October 2020 by the independent Electoral Commission.