By The National Resistance Movement (NRM) Vice Chairperson for Eastern Region, Capt. Mike Mukula, has sounded the alarm over rampant voter bribery in the ongoing Central Executive Committee (CEC) campaigns, warning that the practice threatens to compromise the quality of leadership within the party.
Mukula, who is seeking re-election, claimed that some delegates have already received between Shs200,000 and Shs3 million from candidates in exchange for support. He described the trend as “very dangerous” for the ruling party.
“Some people are spending in the region of two, three, four, even five million shillings per person. Delegates are being influenced using money. This is very dangerous for NRM as a party. As the President said the other day, you are playing with fire,” Mukula told journalists.
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He cautioned that commercializing internal elections undermines the party’s credibility and risks producing incompetent leaders. “When you elect leaders based on money rather than merit, you will end up with people who lack capacity to work in offices. This is not the will of the people; it is the will of financial arrangements,” he said.
Drawing comparisons with other revolutionary movements such as Rwanda’s RPF, Tanzania’s CCM, South Africa’s ANC, and the Chinese Communist Party, Mukula stressed that such practices are unheard of in serious liberation movements.
The NRM vice chairperson further questioned the sources of the money being spent in the campaigns, alleging that some of it comes from abroad. “My colleague does not have any business in the country or pay taxes equivalent to the money being spent. The source of the money is the United States of America,” he claimed.
He added that positions in the CEC are not salaried and carry no perks such as government cars or offices, suggesting that candidates willing to spend exorbitant sums to secure them might be serving external interests.
“CEC is essentially a think tank, the political compass of the party. It is not about privileges, but about shaping policy. If we allow infiltration of money whose sources are questionable, we risk endangering the future of the party,” Mukula warned.
