Beatrice Mao Claps Back at Ofwono Opondo in Explosive Speaker Race Showdown

2026-02-15 - 20:10

Kampala – In a blistering escalation of pre-parliamentary jostling, Beatrice Mao, wife of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Norbert Mao, has launched a sharp rebuttal against veteran National Resistance Movement (NRM) communicator Ofwono Opondo, accusing him of peddling bitterness-fueled attacks to curry favor with political patrons. The spat ignited on Saturday when Opondo, the MP-elect for Older Persons (Eastern Region) in the incoming 12th Parliament, penned a damning column in a local daily, dismissing Mao’s bid for Speaker as a “doomed fantasy.” Drawing on his insider knowledge from years as NRM’s deputy spokesperson, Opondo portrayed the Democratic Party (DP) stalwart as a perennial opportunist, quoting anonymous MPs who label him a “meal card taker, holder, cheap schemer, and double-edged sword.” He argued that Mao’s history of opposition firebrand rhetoric—dating back to his 1990s student activism—has bred deep-seated mistrust among the 529 lawmakers, rendering his cross-aisle alliances fragile at best. Beatrice Mao, a lawyer and the recent Kampala Lord Mayoral candidate who narrowly lost to incumbent Solomon Serunjogi in the January 2026 polls, wasted no time striking back via social media and media interviews. “Ofwono Opondo is broke after campaigns. Do you expect any better write-up? He needs to be noticed by big pockets,” she quipped in a viral post that has racked up thousands of shares on X. Her retort paints Opondo — a vocal NRM loyalist whose own electoral victory was hard-fought — as a desperate hanger-on scrambling for relevance in