Abdu Katuntu, Member of Parliament for Bugweri county, has revealed that he will not contest for a parliamentary seat again in 2021 election.
The Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) leaning legislator will have served for 21 years in 2021 since he was elected in 2001.
He made the remarks while appearing on NBS Television’s Morning Breeze, Wednesday.
Katuntu said that he is very proud for serving his people for all those years and it is time to move on and focus on other things.
“I am not offering myself as a candidate for the elections as a Member of Parliament for Bugweri county. I promised my people and the whole country. After 20 years, I think it is time to move on,” he noted.
He however expressed his concerns about the 2021 elections, noting that they are likely to be vulnerable to violence if the security continues to act as if they’re partisan and bent to the side of the incumbent.
“The 2021 general election is going to be more competitive and vulnerable to violence. My issue is the intervention of security because sometimes they become partisan,” he said.
Katuntu, born 12 March 1965, is a Ugandan politician, currently serving as the Member of Parliament for Bugweri County, Bugweri District.
He is a member of Forum for Democratic Change party and serves as Shadow Attorney General in the Parliament of Uganda.
He was first elected in 2001.
Katuntu is a practising lawyer, having received an LLB from Makerere University and a DIP, LP (LDC) from the Law Development Centre.
He is a former member of the Pan-African Parliament from Uganda and the Rapporteur of the Committee on Justice and Human Rights.
He narrowly lost his parliamentary seat in the 2006 Ugandan general election to Kirunda Kivejinja but successfully challenged the result, citing widespread malpractices.
The court found that “during the campaign period and on polling day, there was wide-spread intimidation, and torture in Bugweri Constituency”, biasing the result in favour of Kivejinja. Katuntu won the resulting by-election.
In the 2011 general elections, he was re-elected for another term in Parliament and retained the seat again in the 2016.
