Conventional wisdom rightly holds that politicians can’t be trusted to keep their promises and opposition politician Norbert Mao has proved the saying.
Before last month’s Presidential elections, Mao who is also the leader of the opposition Democratic Party (DP), promised to resigned if he does not mobilise more than 15 lawmakers to get elected on the party ticket.
However, DP only managed to send six Members of Parliament (MPs) and an embarrassed Mao is not willing to live up to his promise.
“I will not resign despite getting less than 15 MPs as I promised. That would be abdication .I abandoned that promise long ago before 2021 elections after key DP leaders warned me never to repeat such a statement,” Mao said on Tuesday.
The DP was one of the casualties of the red wave caused by new kid on the block Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu aka Bobi Wine whose National Unity Platform (NUP) party swept most seats in Buganda region, which had for a long time been a strong DP base.
Mao has justified the idea that politicians are insincere about their campaign pledges, a fact reflected in public beliefs about election pledge fulfilment.