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Umoja Party Stirs Up D.C. Political Scene

The front-runners in the race for D.C. Council were pelted with boos, jeers and heckles when they addressed about 300 students last week at the University of the District of Columbia.

But when Umoja Party candidate Mark Thompson got his turn, he was greeted with cheers and applause.

The Umoja Party has just 750 registered members and has never won an election, but Thompson is out to change all that.

Along with being the party's marquee candidate on tomorrow's ballot, he is one of its founders. And although Umoja is far from challenging the Democratic Party for dominance in the city, Thompson argues that his reception at UDC shows that he and his party are finding a constituency.

The Umoja Party -- the name means "unity" in the Kiswahili language -- is the creation of a group of activists, of whom Thompson is the most visible, who represent the left end of the political spectrum in the District.

A 29-year-old former UDC student -- a credential that certainly helped him at last week's forum -- Thompson also is a radio talk show host and a veteran of the D.C. statehood movement, with the protest arrests to prove it.

Thompson and his fellow Umojans have adopted an in-your-face political approach, strongly criticizing the D.C. financial control board and calling for institutions such as UDC to have their budgets increased, not cut.

He and the three other Umoja candidates on tomorrow's ballot don't have to worry about blandly blending into the political crowd.

Voters, he argues, "are ready for a blue-collar council member, as opposed to a white-collar one, a council member who will fight for the people. . . . Few of the other candidates can say that they have been at the forefront of most of the issues affecting our community as I have."

Along with Thompson's citywide race for an at-large seat on the council, Umoja candidates are seeking council seats in two wards and the District's "shadow Senate" seat. In Ward 4, Rick Malachi is trying to unseat 16-year incumbent Charlene Drew Jarvis (D). In Ward 8, Rahim Jenkins is part of a five-person council field that includes Democratic front-runner Sandy Allen. In the race for "shadow senator," an unpaid position created to lobby for D.C. statehood, George Pope is running against two others.

Umoja landed an automatic spot on the District's ballot two years ago when Thompson got more than 12,000 votes in the race for D.C. Council chairman, finishing second to Democrat David A. Clarke in a four-way race. Under city law, parties must meet a numerical threshold in elections to stay on the ballot; Thompson needs to get 7,500 votes tomorrow for Umoja to keep its slot.

Running unopposed in the D.C. Council primary on Sept. 5, Thompson got only 86 votes. Tomorrow, he is facing off against nine candidates, with Democrat Harold Brazil (Ward 6) and Republican Carol Schwartz the favorites.

"I don't have to beat Harold Brazil to be on the council; there is that second seat," Thompson said. "I've really been emphasizing that people should know they do have two votes. I'm number one on the ballot."

Born in the District and raised in Nashville, Thompson returned to the city in the 1980s to attend Georgetown University and quickly found himself in the midst of student demonstrations against the apartheid government of South Africa. Thompson eventually left Georgetown and enrolled in UDC, where politics again outweighed academics.

He led a 1990 protest against the UDC administration that shut down the school for 11 days. Thompson never got his degree, he said, because he was too busy in one cause or another, including building up the Umoja Party.

"This is a party of activism," said Thompson, a former Democrat. "There's no point in asking people to join our party to remain as apathetic as they were in the Democratic Party. That would defeat the purpose."