It has been said from the beginning that some of the people defecting from NRM are just being sent by the president to distablise FDC. Rumours have it that retired Major Rubaramira Ruranga is not a member of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) anymore, according to Dan Mugarura, the party’s electoral commissioner.

Mugarura says Maj Rubaramira abandoned FDC in 2007 without resigning his seat as the party’s deputy electoral commission chief. Major Ruranga joined the Reform Agenda in 2003 before it was transformed into the FDC. The retired major allegedly walked away saying he was tired and needed to rest. This was at the time Maj Rubaramira was starting up a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), the National Guidance and Empowerment Network of People Living with HIV.

Mugarura alleges that since then Rubaramira has never updated his party membership as stipulated by the party rules. Each FDC party member is required to update their membership by paying 1000 shillings annually which Mugarura says Rubaramira has never done. Major Ruranga holds a party corporate card which costs one million shillings; however, Mugarura says this does not warrant automatic party membership.

Mugarura further says that FDC carried out voter register updates for delegates in most districts during the period from 2008 to 2010 and Rubaramira did not register from any district. This means Rubaramira is not a member of the National Executive Committee, diaspora, envoy or eminent person of the party such as businessman James Garuga Musinguzi, who was a founding party member and major funder.

Rubaramira was the head of Nandala Mafabi’s task force in the recently concluded party presidential elections in which Mafabi lost to Maj. Gen Mugisha Muntu. But Mugarura says Rubaramira was only Mafabi’s campaign manager but this does not qualify him to be a party member. During the FDC party president election campaigns, Rubaramira described Gen. Mugisha Muntu as a mole.

Ends