By KT Reporter
Contrary to what many thought, outgoing NBS presenter de Blasio Zambali Mukasa is finding it hard to be accepted by voters in Nansana municipality. They say they don’t know him enough beyond seeing him on TV. They don’t know where he resides in the constituency nor where he operates any sort of business from in what used to be Kyadondo north.
Kyagulanyi, who is determined to give him the NUP flag, is right now stressed and confused between a rock and hard place. He sees Zambali as value addition because he thinks his name recognition can create additional publicity for NUP.
Yet the dilemma is that all the teams Kavule has been sending on the ground to assess his standing, have returned with unfavorable reports showing that majority residents haven’t yet accepted Zambali to be one of them. They only know him as a news reader who has been hosting Nambooze every Tuesday on NBS TV.
This has made Kyagulanyi to pause his decision of publicly endorsing Zambali the way he has done for Rubongoya and Mufumbiro for Kampala central and Nakawa respectively. “The intelligence from the field indicates that Nsereko Wakayima, who the secretary general hates for not being good at taking phone calls and for not being regular at Kavule, remains more popular and has a lot more organic support than Zambali who will need a lot of marketing to be accepted by voters,” says a Kavule insider.
It has also been indicated to Kyagulanyi that sacrificing Wakayima in order to impose a political outsider like Zambali on the voters could cost the NUP party the Nansana seat which for long was in the hands of NRM until 2016 when Wakayima liberated it that time running on the DP ticket but in close alliance with Kizza Besigye.
“Voters might revolt and shun Zambali with the NUP flag while at the same time not giving Wakayima enough votes, which can enable NRM’s Robert Kasule to bounce back,” says a knowledgeable Kavule insider.
Zambali has been tasked to go and work on his weaknesses and engage in real community activities which will show that he has been accepted by Nansana voters in real terms beyond just social media. He has also been advised to reduce on his exaggerated sense of self-importance and find a way to humble himself and begin to organically interact with the seniors he has found with Kyagulanyi inside NUP more than is currently happening.
“He is very proud and even when he comes to the secretariat, he feels himself. You can greet him and he behaves as if he hasn’t heard or seen you. He seems to perceive many of us as beggars who want to ask him for money. He can see you and behave as if he hasn’t seen you yet, having personal chemistry with the principal isn’t going to be enough anymore. The pride and self-importance is too much. He must become organic and naturally interact with colleagues inside NUP because he has found us there and there is nothing he adds to the struggle beyond social media. On NBS, he won’t be having that much influence anymore now that he has left and he is no longer among the direct decision makers at the station,” said one of the Kavule insiders when asked to talk about stuff Zambali needs to do to improve his chances.
Wakayima, who is a brother to Frank Gashumba, is also beginning to fight back by reorganizing his support structures and all this political rejuvenation is aimed at inciting Nansana residents to actively reject Zambali who originally eyed Lutamaguzi Ssemakula’s Nakaseke south where they both hail from.
Within Nansana, many business persons and private elementary schools’ owners are for NUP and have vowed not to abandon Wakayima, for an alien like Zambali, because it was him (Wakayima) who sold the Kyagulanyi politics and the entire NUP agenda to them at a time Zambali was enjoying NBS’ air conditioned offices. These have a lot of influence because they employ many young people at their premises.
Such opinion leaders don’t see anything wrong Wakayima has done to deserve being discarded and replaced with Zambali. If NUP isn’t careful, such cracks could be exploited by NRM to bounce back. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
