Budiope West, a constituency in Buyende district, will not be the area Milly Babirye Babalanda, the Minister for Presidency in President Yoweri Museveni’s fishermen cabinet because the voters in the rural district have said no.
To show that they don’t want Babalanda to be their MP, on hearing that she was coming to officiate at a belated Women’s Day function on Wednesday, voters there organized and conducted a fierce demonstration to make their intentions clear that Babalanda is unwelcome.
Babalanda has in the recent week commenced mobilizing community leaders in the area persuading them to support her parliamentary seat ambition. This, however, looks like it fell on deaf ears as the same people have turned against her.
During the Tuesday protests, wearing black t-shirts bearing Babalanda’s ‘canceled’ photo with inscriptions denouncing her, residents scorned her gullibility to think that the people of Budiope West are dense enough to trust her.
Babalanda who was born and raised in Kamuli district has for the past years struggled to find a stronghold where she can launch her elective political career with no success. Despite being close to President Yoweri Museveni, and an NRM mobilizer, Babalanda was rejected in Kamuli, Kaliro, and recently Jinja. She then turned to Budiope West.
On the day she was in Buyende to attend the Women’s Day celebrations at Iringa Primary School, protestors planted damning posters on buildings, motorcycles, cars, and trees to deliver the unwanted message to Babalanda who they referred to as a political reject.