Kampala — THE ATTORNEY General's announcement earlier this week that political parties are now free to operate without restriction dramatically reshaped the Ugandan political environment.

Unfortunately, once again, the old political parties have failed to rise to the challenge.

The Uganda Peoples Congress, the Democratic Party and the Conservative Party are refusing to register on the grounds that their existence was implicitly recognised by the 1995 Constitution.

However the Attorney General argues that Article 270 merely allowed the existing political parties to operate until Parliament passed laws covering the registration of political organisations, which has now happened.

All over the world parties have to register, just like newspapers, NGOs, companies and all sorts of non-political organisations. This is perfectly normal.

The UPC, DP and CP accept that new parties will have to register, including the Movement if it wants to become a political organisation. They just don't want to register themselves.

The UPC, DP and CP now want to go into a pointless long-drawn legal battle over whether they need to register or not. But this is the mentality of the loser, of the victim. It is not the positive attitude of the vote-winner.

Why don't UPC, DP and CP just push ahead and register themselves as political parties this month? Then they will be free to campaign flat out up to the 2006 elections.

If the Attorney General by any chance refuses to register these old parties, then they will have a great legal case that can win them a lot of popular support.

But right now, the old political parties are just wasting time and failing to inspire anyone.