The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
The Buganda question
After an unprecedented electoral shellacking in the critical Buganda sub-region by the 10 month-old NUP party, Museveni faces a stern test of how to placate a constituency that has been key to his hold onto power.
Buganda; comprising two dozen districts was for years a Museveni stronghold from where key power brokers emerged. These included influential religious figures in both the Christian and Muslim faith, the Buganda Kingdom, musicians, businesspeople, and many other players.
The strategic relationship culminated into a gentleman’s agreement at some point in time that Museveni would pick his vice president from Buganda.
It is now unclear if the President will keep the current holder of the VP slot; the laid back Edward Sekandi, but observers say he may have to do more olive branch-waving to the Buganda politico bloc as he assembles his cabinet. Sekandi and other cabinet ministers in the area lost their parliament seats in dismal fashion in the January polls to People Power candidates.
The Buganda- Museveni relationship appears to be at its lowest ebb with some ministers attributing their electoral losses to the heartrending brutality by Museveni’s military while cracking down on People Power supporters. These brutal scenes were more often than not in Kampala; the heart of Buganda.
Majority of those abducted by the army and state operatives since the election hail from this region and the tensions abide. It is now a daily feature in the news for parents to cry out for their missing children who have allegedly been disappeared by the military and are reportedly writhing in pain in hidden torture chambers.
A prominent leader from the region; Charles Peter Mayiga, the Katikkiro of Buganda kingdom, has warned the government about the continued brutality and persistently demanded for the release for those unlawfully detained.
Bobi Wine, as the new leader of opposition who also hails from Buganda insists Museveni did not win the election, was illegally sworn-in, and only stays in power because he has guns around him.
Museveni also faces the unease of dealing with who will be the next Speaker of Parliament. An apparent rift between him and Speaker Rebecca Kadaga has got Museveni quietly backing Kadaga’s deputy, Jacob Oulanyah. For months, Kadaga and Oulanyah have flexed openly and covertly over who should lead the eleventh parliament.
The issue has got so heated that Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda wrote to the Speaker requesting for a postponement of the Speaker election date.
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