Former forum for Democratic Change President Dr Kizza Besigye has tasked his party leadership to be accommodative to people with divergent views.

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In a message interpreted to address the protracted animosity between Budadiri West MP Nandala Mafabi and Party President Maj Gen Mugisha Muntu, Besigye said the fragmented forces in the party can only be addressed through accommodating views of even the ‘most cantankerous members.’

This was carried in his message at the opening of the FDC delegate’s conference at Mandela National Stadium, Namboole.

Besigye said justice is an important ingredient in the party if they are to achieve harmony, felt by every member and tasked the leadership not make anybody in the party feel like they are second citizens if the party is to achieve the meaning in the slogan; ‘One Uganda, One People.’

“We must be happy that we have then, we must provide them space to express their cantankerousness, we need to build on a desire to have everybody,” Besigye said.

The former party presidential flag bearer asked the FDC leadership headed by Gen Muntu to foster dialogue and use this as a basis for party strength.

However, Besigye rejected a proposal to scrap polling station executives from the party’s constitution. He reasoned that it is the polling executive which guard the votes and normally know the rightful voters at village level.

“It is an error to think that you will only have to create the polling executive during elections. The greatest challenge is that we get free and fair elections and not to compete in any form of elections,” he said.

Besigye told the morning session which was chaired by the party chairperson Joyce Ssebugwawo that it is not right to continue escorting a dictatorship and the party should be preoccupied with what type of elections they take part in.

He said following the recently concluded consultative meeting at hotel Africana, it isn’t going to be business as usual because concentration is going to be on how the opposition pushes for the reforms.

He tasked the party to create structures to exert the push, not to maintain the status quo.

Demands NRM Financial Statement

Meanwhile, Dr Kiiza Besigye observed that it is important to establish the source of funding for the National Resistance Movement-The party in Power.

He said they have demanded the electoral commission to present the expenditure of NRM and it source of funding to avoid venturing into the taxpayers envelope.

Besigye explained that apart from the contributions from the Members of Parliament, the other NRM associates do not make any financial contribution to the management of the party which however keeps splashing billions of shillings on its activities.

“NRM entirely depends on the tax payer’s money; we have asked the electoral commission to present to us their financial statement because it is required by law.

Namayanja has been traveling the whole country using a government vehicle, and government fuel, where did they get all those billions to sell the sole candidate project,” Besigye questioned.

Later, the FDC Secretary General Alice Alaso said while the party suffered defections; it had also registered growth in the last one and a half years.

She noted some of the major defections as Maj Rubaramira Ruranga and Stanley Bayole, although she hastened to add that it better to stay with few people who don’t have rented support for the party.

She said they had peacefully resolved the internal disagreements that spilled over from the 2012 party presidential election. “The committee disposed of the matter of the term of the president as had been captured by NEC decision before the presidential elections,” she said.

She said the current major hurdle remains on building of the party structures