ANALYSIS: Besigye reloaded

In 2001 he had broken ranks with the Movement and stirred anti-regime forces those both in and outside government.

2006 was a much needed second chance for Besigye who had spent five years in exile. His presidential bid got electrified when he was jailed on frivolous charges of rape. His third bid in 2011, it can be argued was due to the absence of any potent challenger to Museveni.

2016 proved tricky for Besigye due to the candidature of Amama Mbabazi. He was lackluster but initially got everyone talking with the belief that he would attract the neutrals who were caught between the Museveni-Besigye horse race. But the torture and brutality meted out on Besigye during the Walk-to-Work protests seemed to have re-awakened the adoration voters had for Besigye when it came to nomination time.

2021 is two years away and Besigye’s firepower has been neutered by a young and likeable politician whose election to Parliament in 2017 created new talking points for the next general election. At times, Besigye has become a bit-part player in the political process as the NRM regime unleashes its wrath on Bobi Wine.

Police has blocked his concerts, the army has outlawed his red beret outfit which People Power partisans defiantly don, leaving Museveni and the singer-turned politician locked in an inter-generational battle. With President Museveni unveiling murals of himself as a man of the Ghetto, he is showing that he is ready to apply any tactic as long as it is countering Bobi Wine.

Meanwhile Besigye; a four time presidential candidate has hailed 2019 as the year of action. But his critics say it is not the first time he is making such proclamations. In 2009, he said a political tsunami would sweep the NRM government from power.

In January 2018, Besigye launched Tubalemese (let’s fail them) which was aimed at shunning businesses owned by members of NRM.

FDC hits back

Harold Kaija, the FDC deputy secretary general says the Bobi Wine team does not have a “working formula” adding that the latter group is doing what FDC has been doing over the years.

“We have been at this game for long. We should be looking for a way of retiring Mr Museveni” he tells The Independent. “He organises elections and he decides the winner. How do you unpack him? We are looking at a way of ensuring Museveni does not appear on the ballot” he says.

On the seeming impossibility of this event, Kaija has a quick answer. “Bashir thought he was going to be on the ballot in 2020. The same with Kabila” Both are no longer president albeit in different circumstances; one having been pushed out and the other quit after a negotiation with his would be successors.

Kaija tells The Independent that the infrastructure of an incumbent is something ordinary Ugandans must deal with and not just those in the opposition.

“We are stuck. How do we get out of here?” he says. “I always challenge people. We are not living in a normal situation. There is wining and being declared a winner.”

Kaija states that he is more worried about the political dispensation in Uganda. “There is no provision for transition in the constitution.” He says the fact that the Ugandan constitution only states that when the president dies, the VP shall take over leaves a lot of trouble for a post-election period say in the event that Museveni is defeated at the polls.

“We would have a constitutional crisis when another candidate wins, how does the incumbent hand over?”

Kaija tells The Independent that Twerwaneko is not an election platform as it appears to some people. Echoing Besigye, he says, “This is meant to empower Ugandans to stop the abuse of freedom of speech, stop the killings, the land grabs. All this has been going on without serious accountability.”

Kaija took a swipe at DP, Uganda’s oldest party, for riding on the Bobi Wine wave. “They (DP) always want someone to campaign for DP while contesting as an Independent. It started with Mbabazi whom they knew was an Independent but kept on associating with him”

He says it is the same with Bobi Wine. “But now they have fallen out with Bobi Wine and they are nowhere to be seen.”