Ugandan general elections. Bataringaya quickly became popular within the Democratic Party of Uganda that controlled government following its win of 44 of the 82 contested seats, and Bataringaya was appointed to be the first Minister of Local Government for Uganda's first post-colonial independent government under Benedicto Kiwanuka. Leader of the Opposition Following agreements made by 48 Ugandan representatives, including prominent Ugandan politician A.G. Mehta, at a September 1961 Constitutional Convention meeting in London, England, the Ugandan Legislative Council of the transitional government between the colonial-era Uganda Protectorate and the Republic of Uganda became the Parliament of Uganda, which was then formally dissolved so that the 1962 Ugandan general election could occur on 25 April 1962, the first elections held under an entirely independent Ugandan government. Bataringaya ran again as a member of the Democratic Party of Uganda in his Ankole constituency and was reelected. Bataringaya lost his ministerial positions as a result of the election, as the Ugandan People's Congress won 37 of the 82 seats and formed an alliance with the Kabaka Yekka party that won 21 of 82 seats, giving this new alliance 58 of the 82 seats in the Parliament of Uganda, taking control away from the Democratic Party of Uganda who won 24 of the 82 seats and became the official party of the opposition. Bataringaya was recently elected Secretary General of the Democratic Party of Uganda in 1961, and became the second most powerful member of the Democratic Party after the Prime Minister of the transitional government between the colonial-era Uganda Protectorate and the Republic of Uganda, Benedicto Kiwanuka. Benedicto Kiwanuka did not run for the Parliament of Uganda in the 1962 Ugandan general election and thus was ineligible for any parliamentarian positions in the first government of the Republic of Uganda. As the highest-ranking member of the Democratic Party of Uganda still in the Parliament of Uganda, Bataringaya became the second ever Leader of the Ugandan Opposition, replacing newly elected prime minister Apollo Milton Obote, and the first ever Ugandan Opposition Leader of the new Republic of Uganda. As Opposition Leader, Bataringaya worked as the chief representative of the Democratic Party of Uganda which was operating as the resistance to the Apollo Milton Obote regime and the joint Ugandan People's Congress and Kabaka Yekka government. Bataringaya had little power as opposition leader, but worked during his tenure as Leader of the Ugandan Opposition to