Member of Parliament for Bukedea, Hon Anita Among, succeeds the late Jacob Oulanyah as the new speaker of the 11th Parliament.
KAMPALA | NOW THEN DIGITAL — Hon. Anita Among, a Bukedea District Member of Parliament, has been elected new speaker of the 11th Parliament in place of the late Jacob Oulanyah.
In a voting exercise held at the Kololo Independence grounds and presided over by Chief Justice Alphonse Owiny-Dollo, Among scooped 401 votes while Asuman Basalirwa managed only 66 votes.
Anita Among’s victory comes two days after the Central Executive Committee (CEC) endorsed her as the party flagbearer for the speakership race beating off competition from 12 other members who had expressed interest in the position.
CEC noted on Wednesday that the NRM party has established the practice and culture of elevating the Deputy Speaker to the position of Speaker even when there has not been any disruption and now, even more, when there is an emergency.
As a result, it gave a go-ahead to the NRM Parliamentary Caucus to endorse her ( Hon. Anita Among) for the position.
Who is Anita Among?
Anita Among, 49, was born on 23 November 1973. She is a lawyer, an accountant and a politician who now serves as the running Speaker of the 11th Parliament.
Previously before her election to this position, she has been serving as the Deputy Speaker of the same Parliament.
Among was initially supposed to serve as deputy Speaker from 2021–2026 but she was endorsed for the bigger post following the death of her boss Oulanyah.
Despite her quick growth in politics, Among has seemingly had a successful political career.
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Currently, she is serving as the fully elected member of parliament for the Bukedea District Women Constituency the same position she held in the 10th parliament between 2016 to 2021.
Anita, like many other well-established politicians, was formerly a member of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party before joining the ruling NRM party where she was voted to the position of Deputy speaker.
For two parliamentary election cycles notably in 2007, when Bukedea District was created, and 2011, Among lost the District Woman Representative seat to Rose Akol of the National Resistance Movement political party.
In 2020, she joined the National Resistance Movement (NRM) after falling out with her party FDC and won the party primaries.
In the 2021 general elections, she was one of the few legislators who was elected to the MP seat unopposed though her victory was contentious because the electoral commission blocked some of her competitors from nomination.
