The leadership of Forum for Democratic Change, Uganda’s biggest opposition party, has a difficult task ahead to unite party ranks after last week’s elections to replace Kizza Besigye, its president, brought to the surface bitter personal, tribal and regional undercurrents that have troubled the party since its inception.

“FDC is currently badly divided. [Mugisha] Muntu and [Dr Kizza] Besigye need to move quickly to cool tempers in the [Mafabi] Nandala camp. This will also be a test of Muntu’s much-vaunted diplomacy and amiable nature. He is reputed to be a calm and careful decision maker,” noted a confidante of both men who did not wish to be named.

Maj-Gen Muntu, the party’s secretary for mobilisation, won the presidency with 393 delegate votes, or 50.5 per cent, in an election the party held on November 22.

Mr Mafabi, the MP for Budadiri West and the Leader of Opposition in parliament, polled 361 delegate votes, 32 less than Maj-Gen Muntu. Geoffrey Ekanya, the party’s secretary for finance and the third candidate in the race, managed only 17 votes.

According to a party strategist, the third election of its kind in the party’s seven year history was distinguished from the previous two by how lacking it was in the civility, consideration for party unity and image that shaped the earlier contests between Dr Besigye and Maj-Gen Muntu.

“Our party is still very young. The level of contestation isn’t what we would have liked to witness. We should have been able to sit and talk through any contentious issues,” Prof Ogenga Latigo, the party’s vice president for northern Uganda, told The EastAfrican on the eve of the elections.

Now, FDC is playing catch up, doing today what it ought to have done over the three months the three men crisscrossed the country and spent in excess of a billion shillings (about $370,000), according to rough estimates from each team’s expenditure, on promoting personal profiles.

Earlier in the week, Maj-Gen Muntu and Mr Mafabi put on a public display of unity in the easterly district of Kween as they stumped for party member Chemisto Machinjach.

The 33-year-old army deserter turned farmer was challenging his father Paul Machinjach, a former Speaker in the neighbouring Kapchorwa District, to the district’s chairperson’s seat, which fell vacant in August 2011 after the High Court nullified previous results.

This show followed a conciliatory meeting that was convened a day after the elections to try and review grievances such as bias on the part of some party executives and multiple voting that were mainly voiced on polling day.

The timing was poor. Raw emotions hijacked the meeting that nearly descended into a fighting match, sources said.