Omoro County MP Jacob Oulanyah has been declared the Speaker of the Eleventh Parliament/ Photo by Olive Nakatudde
The Omoro County MP Jacob Oulanyah has been elected Speaker of the Eleventh Parliament.
Oulanyah won the hotly contested race with 310 votes against 197 votes garnered by former Speaker of the Tenth Parliament Rebecca Kadaga. Oulanyah won with a margin of 113 votes.
Kira Municipality MP Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda who also took part in the contest managed only 15 votes.
The results were declared by Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo who presided over the election process at the Kololo Independence Grounds. The event was also attended by President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and a section of officials from the ruling National Resistance Movement-NRM party Secretariat.
The election during the first sitting of the Eleventh Parliament comes a few days after newly elected Members of Parliament took oath.
Article 82 of the Constitution provides that the Speaker and Deputy Speaker shall be elected by Members of Parliament from their number and a person shall not be qualified to be elected Speaker or Deputy Speaker if he or she is a Vice President or a Minister.
“No business shall be transacted in Parliament other than an election to the office of Speaker at any time that the office of the Speaker is vacant. The Chief Justice or a Judge designated by the Chief Justice shall preside at an election of a Speaker, and the Speaker shall preside at an election of the Deputy Speaker,” the Constitution further reads.
This same procedure is laid down under Rule 5 of the Parliament Rules of Procedure.
Oulanyah was on Sunday declared as the ruling NRM party flag bearer in the Speaker race by the party top organ- the Central Executive Committee (CEC) sitting at State House Entebbe. This position by CEC was further endorsed by the NRM Parliamentary caucus.
Kadaga could later walk out of State House Entebbe and address a press conference at Hotel Africana, Kampala where she noted that she would run as an independent candidate.
She told journalists that the major reason she was denied support by her party is that she has been speaking about issues affecting ordinary people. She said that by ejecting her, the position of women in the constitution has been eliminated.
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