The Electoral Commission (EC) recently rolled out a new road map which many of you in the Opposition challenged as being impractical. What is your plan now?
What is evident is that whereas we came up with a road map, EC launched a new road map which in quick observation is stringent and is not going to allow political parties to carry out internal processes.
For instance, the EC obliges us to come up with candidates and they give deadlines for identifying flag bearers in one month. We also know that there are legal deadlines that are given to verify academic documents and we know that the presidential and parliamentary elections should not go beyond a certain date. Our difficulty is how we tie up our internal processes which would require a bit of time for us to go to the grassroots to identify leaders and organise the delegates’ conference.

Because we lost three months already, we have decided to stay our election, which was supposed to happen around this month. We chose the National Executive Committee (NEC) to defer the election and, therefore, maintain the status quo so that whatever functions the leaders should have conducted are able to be conducted. But that cannot happen with the Electoral Commission road map.
So we see ourselves in a difficult position, getting the delegates’ conference out of our way and just concentrating on identifying flag bearers.

How are you going to be able to do this?
It is very hard for me to say how we shall be able to do this, but what we have agreed on is that we shall have to bypass this process and come up with a leader who will stand as our flag bearer.

The Electoral Commission is causing us a lot of trouble in all that they have launched. In our view, this is a departure from what we expected; a free and fair election and we are going to interrogate whether this is something that will deliver a free and fair election.
In the face of all these challenges and the solutions you are trying to come up with, are you considering boycotting this election?
We have four options we are weighing at the moment in regard to this new road map. One is to table it in Parliament. Two is that we could challenge it in court, although we don’t have enough faith in the court process, but we could still make a point by going there. Third, we could review our participation in the election. Yes, we could refuse to take part in the election and fourth is that we could call for civic action.

What are the particular areas of contentions in this road map?
EC is stifling political parties. We need at least three months to carry out all the activities that we have. We understand the restrictions, but what is the problem with postponing the election?
The digital elections is another area of contention. This is going to be very hard because more than 90 per cent of the radio stations are owned by NRM fanatics and supporters. This is going to be very hard for us the Opposition.
We are also very unhappy that the consultation was done with Mr Museveni and the EC has admitted it, they are not shy about it. They even say this knowing that President Museveni has been chosen by his party to take part in the election next year…
But Mr Museveni is still the President of the country who needs to be consulted on things that happens…