By Gerald Bareebe
Four candidates were this past week nominated to contest in the race that will determine who will carry the flag for the coalition of five opposition political parties in next year’s presidential elections. If symbolism is anything to go back what went and did go on at Kololo Airstip where the nominations took place, spoke volumes about the conditions prevalent within the ranks of Uganda’s political opposition with less than 200 days to the 2011 elections.
Forum for Democratic Change president, Dr Kizza Besigye, Justice Forum (Jeema) president, Hajj Hussein Kyanjo; Conservative Party’s Prof. James Kigongo and Social Democratic Party president, Michael Mabikke, were nominated amid some pomp and glamour albeit with fewer than would have been expected numbers of party enthusiasts.
Conspicuously absent was the Uganda Peoples Congress’s leader, Mr Olara Otunnu, after his party requested for time to deal with its internal grassroots elections. Mr Otunnu has been on a whistle stop tour of the United States and United Kingdom, addressing Ugandans in the Diaspora and launching what he has called Uganda’s ten-point radical renewal agenda.
IPC president Dr Besigye explained later that Mr Otunnu had been allowed time to sort out his current court battle in which he is hoping to overturn what he described as “trumped up charges” of sedition and sectarianism. He said Mr Otunnu would get nominated eventually.
But UPC’s last minute withdrawal from the nominations for a joint opposition presidential candidate has injected an atmosphere of distrust in the Inter-Party Cooperation. Although all IPC leaders tried to play down the Otunnu no show, his continued absence threatens to wreck the cooperation’s plans.
Some political pundits have argued that there is nothing ideological that holds IPC together, apart from the fact that all the cooperating parties want to field a single candidate in the 2011 elections to run against incumbent President Museveni. Because of this lack of ideological synthesis, they say, the chances of the alliance breaking up before election are ever so real.
From the speeches made at Kololo, the cooperating parties appeared to be looking for the common ground. The idea of federalism as a preferred system of government as opposed to the current republican dispensation was emphasised by all candidates over alongside the joint candidate intentions.
They all talked ill of the government mishandling of the Buganda and Banyala issue; a thorny political matter which exploded in the September 2009 demonstrations which left about 27 people dead and 50 injured, most of them as result of being shot with live ammunition by men in police uniform. The opposition leaders contended that the demonstrations exposed the tensions between state control and Buganda’s desire for a federal government.
But whether federalism will be enough glue to hold the coalition together remains contentious considering that at the same function, the smaller parties reintroduced the fear that FDC being the largest opposition political party in Uganda, could overshadow them in the IPC.
A way around these fears appears to be on the agenda of the IPC leadership. The leaders have agreed to allow the smaller parties organise some of its activities.
For example, it was the Jeema that organised the IPC youth celebrations at Wankulukiuku Stadium while CP organised the Kololo nomination ceremony.
Such apparently mundane things though symbolic have a certain political significance.
But back to the UPC matter. In an interview with Inside Politics, UPC’s representative to the IPC Steering Committee, Patrick Mwondha, insisted the party cannot pullout because it has been at the centre of the cooperation.
Mr Mwondha, the only UPC official who turned up at Kololo, said; “We are very much into this cooperation and there is no way we can pullout.
We are sorting up some of our internal grassroots elections and we shall come and get no nominated.” Mr Mwondha added that UPC agrees with most of the issues the other parties cherish like federalism, and that it would work with parties to establish an effective corrupt-free government. For now, this is an optimistic reading of the signs despite the gathering clouds of the horizon.
It would interesting to know what Mr Mwondha has to say about Mr Robert Kanusu’s midweek claim that the IPC leadership is straying from the principle of transparency that was one of the central points to the formation of a coalition. Mr Kanusu is press secretary to Mr Otunnu and it would be fair enough to say that he speaks with his master’s voice on the subject.
When Prof. Kigongo, the first candidate to get nominated, spoke he promised to introduce a federal system of government, saying it is the best solution to dictatorship and the “failed” decentralisation programme.
“With such devolution of power and responsibility, we would strengthen our institutional capacity to fight the scourge of corruption and develop strong institutional capacity to ensure equitable distribution of natural resources.” Prof Kigongo said.
The professor who has until now been an unknown political quantity spoke words of such political significance but it is unlikely they did anything to break the presence that Dr Besigye, who was second on the nominations table.
Addressing his supporters after the process, Dr Besigye sought to cast himself as a candidate of hope, and a person with proven experience that can be trusted to navigate Uganda’s mucky political waters.
“I come with a message of hope,” he said, “I mean hope of a bright future for all Ugandans. Let us unite and move forward rather than be scattered in fear… The 2011 elections must be about the future of Uganda not about the past and my record shows that I am the best candidate to deliver the future that all Ugandans aspire for.
“I have the unwavering commitment to serve the people as I have shown in my participation in the struggle for peace and democracy in this country. I have a record of clean, responsible, democratic and team-playing in my party….. I have been tried, I have been tested and the people of Uganda know that I have not been found wanting.”
The FDC leader indicated that if elected, he would improve health care, create an economy based on sustainable and equitable development, work on the poor infrastructure and create an efficient and accountable government that would respect the basic human rights. All very well put.
Also casting his eyes into the tomorrow, Jeema’s candidate Hussein Kyanjo also pledged to grant a federal system of government to all regions of Uganda and set up mechanisms that would open economic opportunities for the women, the youth and the elderly.
“If you are a woman who is interested in a bright future, I am your candidate, and if you doubt me, go and ask my wife. If you are a businessman, I am a candidate of your choice, if you are that person who is tired of corruption, nepotism, and corruption with impunity, I am your candidate, but if you are that person who is worried and has no hope in the future of this country, I am sorry I will disappoint you.”
Mr Mabikke, the youngest candidate in the race, was immediately controversial, warning that his party (the SDP) would not make any concession to opposition leaders with no desire to “uproot President Museveni from power”.
Clearly, the removal of Mr Museveni remains at the heart of not just one of the opposition leadership
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