By Glady Mukisa
In what has come exclusively to be established by this Website as a choreographed strategy for the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party not to widen the gap for MP numbers in the 12th parliament after the 2026 elections, the party president Patrick Oboi Amuriat (POA) had to lose his 2026 presidential bid for parliamentary, to which he had retreated.
Oboi is now the official holder of the party flag for Kanyum parliamentary seat in Teso sub region. His retreat to the parliamentary race came into an equation following the 2021 chaotic elections in which he was the party presidential flag bearer.
According to insiders, consensus was reached internally shortly after the 2021 polls for Oboi to leave the presidential bid to the FDC secretary general Nathan Mafabi Nandala, who had already indicated that he was retiring from parliamentary elective politics in 2026, to which he has been an actor for 25 years as Budadiri West MP on FDC ticket.
To ascertain this intention according to reliable sources, portraits announcing Nandala’s 2026 presidential bid on T-shirts draped by some party members and on posters, started to arrive in circulation flying around, despite being too early to the 2026 elections.
It became a known position to a few deciding party leaders before it could be drawn to the knowledge of all-party members later on according to sources, that’ s how POA as popularly called within the circles of the sky-blue party ended up skipping the 2026 presidential race.
As part of internal mathematical strategy, sources exclusively told Blazer News Times that POA’s return to parliament would benefit the party to exponentially add onto the FDC MP numbers considering that he has got the ground politically.
Regardless of their size, Nandala’s Budadiri constituency boots were passed to one Rev. Magombe his personal assistant to uphold the popular FDC constituency if at all he goes through the 2026 election, banking on Nandala’s prominence as a political king pin in Bugisu sub region.
Mathematically, that speaks to no loss made if all things went as calculated according to sources.
However, what portrays a bit of political dishonesty on the part of the top party leadership is that, they were already privy to the information that POA would not hold the party flag for 2026 presidential race, but went on to inform the public in July that Nandala and POA were in talks aimed at convincing one of them to abdicate for another the candidature.
Rationalization of this political deception which played out ahead the purported July 31 Delegates Conference to decide on the party’s choice presidential candidate, was reflected with assembling of party elders from Teso sub region (home for POA) and Bugisu sub region (home for Nandala) before cameras that they had meetings aimed at fostering dialogue between the dual.
Final 2021 election results by the Uganda Electoral Commission puts POA in the third position with 337,589 votes which is 3.26%, Robert Sentamu Kyagulanyi (NUP) in the second with 3,631,437 votes – 35.08%, while incumbent president Yoweri Kaguta Museveni first with 6,042,898 votes which is 58.38%, out of the 10,744,319 total votes.
Despite coming third, POA who had run his whole presidential campaign bear footed arising from the police brutality shortly after his nomination, put up a fine performance for FDC with a harvest of 32 representatives to the 11th parliament.
His performance was fine in the way that he was replacing a high-profile political figure Dr. Kiiza Besigye who had held the party flag for four consecutive times. In his prime time, Dr. Besigye was able to win the party only 36 parliamentary seats.
Amidst spontaneous NUP’s Bobi Wine political wave that posed a very serious effect to the existing political formations including the ruling party, POA managed to return 32 MPS to parliament, considering that he was new on a national scene.
