Efforts to give the United Opposition a common operational centre have collapsed dealing a fresh blow to attempts by the coalition to project unity.
The attempt to establish a joint secretariat stalled after constituent parties opted to continue running their affairs from their respective party headquarters, leaving the opposition alliance without a shared administrative nerve centre.
Dr Mukhisa Kituyi, who had been designated spokesperson and head of the United Opposition secretariat, disclosed the setback during an interview on Citizen TV’s JKLive on Wednesday, saying he had taken concrete steps to establish the proposed offices before the parties failed to agree on the arrangement.
Kituyi said he had identified potential premises and even moved furniture from his former political party offices in anticipation of setting up the secretariat.
“When I was designated spokesperson of the United Opposition I set about to try establish a secretariat. I looked around at different properties to set up offices, I even brought some of the furniture I used to have in my political party offices and availed for the purpose,” he said.
But the plan ran into the hard reality of coalition politics.
“But all the constituent parties of the United Opposition preferred to run their businesses at their party secretariats. So this effort failed,” Kituyi said.
The failure exposes the central weakness of the United Opposition whose leaders have managed to assemble politically, but not institutionally.
The parties still retain separate headquarters, structures and chains of command, something making a common opposition strategy harder to enforce.
The real test for the opposition is now whether they can surrender enough of their individual party machinery to build a coalition that actually functions as one. For now, they have not even agreed on where that coalition should operate from.
