Opposition against Museveni growing?

Besigye remains hot item

As the year ends, Museveni might also recall with regret the humiliation he suffered when a parliament dominated by his party shouted at him to free opposition leader Kizza Besigye who was then-jailed at Luzira in Kampala. The incident happened as Finance minister Matia Kasaija was reading the budget on June 08.

As is customary, after Kasaija’s presentation, Museveni was making his remarks when legislators interrupted him calling for Besigye’s release.

Forced onto the defensive, Museveni said he had no power to influence Besigye’s release.

Besigye’s incarceration was the culmination of a tense four months of political tension. The year had opened with tensions arising out of Presidential and Parliamentary election campaigns. The Badru Kiggundu-led Electoral Commission (EC) announced Museveni the winner of the elections with 5.9 million votes or 60.6 percent followed by Kizza Besigye who scored 3.5 million votes or 35.61 percent of the total votes cast. Amama Mbabazi, on the other hand, polled 136,519 representing 1.4 percent of the total votes cast.

Mbabazi, who came in third, shocked many who had expected him to be President Museveni’s biggest threat after he was pushed out of the ruling party over reports that he was nurturing presidential ambitions.

His attempts to challenge the election also came to naught as all the nine Justices of the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Bart Katureebe, unanimously ruled against him.

Besigye, who had declined to go to court after losing previous petitions in 2001 and 2006, decided to challenge Museveni through the defiance campaign. Besigye and his supporters beat security a day to Museveni’s swearing in ceremony and held their own ceremony that marked the beginning of their defiance. This campaign also involved prayers at the Najanankumbi party headquarters.

In reaction, government arrested, detained Besigye before preferring treason charges against him. Prosecution alleged that Besigye and others at large between February 20 and May 11 2016 intended to force government to change the lawfully established methods of acceding to the office of the president.

State prosecutors had wanted Besigye’s case to be handled at a Luzira Court citing security threats and the state had refused to produce Besigye in court. But Chief Magistrate James Ereemye Kabanda issued the warrant to compel prison officers to present Besigye, before court on June 15 for mention of his case. Besigye, who declined to get legal representation, penned a letter to the Chief Justice detailing injustices he was facing. On June.7, he applied for bail. The opposition leader, who was arrested on May 17, would not be released until July.

By the time he was released, his defiance campaign appeared to have run out of steam. Matters were not helped by the in-fighting inside his party. Some of the members accused party President Gen. Mugisha Muntu of not prioritising the defiance campaign and by extension Besigye’s release.

On May.22, Aruu County legislator, Odonga Otto on his Face Book page, lambasted Muntu over his choice of the FDC shadow cabinet, which he said excluded Nathan Nandala-Mafabi, Nabila Nagayi, Elijah Okupa and himself a fact he attributed to nothing but direct vengeance on the key Besigye loyalists.

With the opposition at war with itself, President Museveni struck. For the first time, he appointed active members of the opposition into his cabinet. These included Beti Kamya, who he made the Minister in charge of Kampala, Betty Amongin, the Minister for Lands, Nakiwala Kiyingi, minister of state for youth and children affairs, and Christopher Kibanzanga in charge of Agriculture.

Amongin’s appointment was meant to appease voters from northern Uganda, where she is born and married to Jimmy Akena, the president of UPC and son to party founder and former president, Milton Obote. Political pundits also saw these moves as intended to calm tempers after a highly divisive election.

Kamya’s appointment was seen as intended to deal with Erias Lukwago, who bounced back as Kampala mayor after being blocked from office the previous term.

To some extent, observers say, the moves appear to have bought Museveni sometime. Kampala under Kamya has not been as tough for Museveni as it was under Frank Tumwebaze whom he put in charge of Information and ICT.

Museveni also brought back into cabinet Lt.Gen. Henry Tumukunde and put him in charge of Security. As experts predicted, Tumukunde’s appointment appeared to be intended to countercheck the rising influence of Police Chief, Gen. Kale Kayihura.

It wasn’t long until Kayihura and Tumukunde were clashing to a point that some felt Kayihura would be moved from police especially because Tumukunde appeared to work closely with his friend, Gen. Caleb Akandwanaho, the president’s brother, who appeared in charge of government.

Kasese, Gulu erupt

But Museveni’s appointment of Kibanzanga, a former opposition stalwart who is the brother of the belligerent Rwenzururu king Omusinga Wesley Mumbers was arguably the most calculative. Kibazanga previous was in the opposition FDC party which had trounced Museveni and his NRM hands down in the Kasese area. His appointment was possibly designed to win the hearts of Rwenzururu voters who claimed Museveni was marginalizing them. But the move failed desperately to end tensions and the fight between Mumbere’s royal guards and the government.

The latest of these attacks, which occurred in Kasese, directly pitted the royal guards of the Omusinga against police and military forces. Lives were lost on both sides—civilians and security personnel—with some putting the death toll at over a hundred lives.

For supporters of President Museveni, he might have come out of the Kasese incident as the winner since the king was arrested and is facing charges together with his guards. But for observers, the incident may have cristalised animosity against President Museveni’s government in that region.