By Andrew M. Mwenda
Feb 15 - 21, 2004
|
Do President Yoweri Museveni and his pro third advocates have the numbers to get a constitutional amendment to remove term limits on the presidency through parliament or the referendum? If they get the amendment, can they mobilise the country to elect candidate Museveni in 2006? What political structures do they have to support such a project? What would be the major campaign re-election issue? If the odds are against them, how much violence, repression and rigging will they need to employ to get their way, and what effect would that have on Uganda's stability? To understand President Museveni's electoral fortunes, we need to go back to when Colonel (rtd) Dr Kiiza Besigye declared his intention to run for the presidency in the March 2001 presidential elections. For the first time, a senior military officer and movement insider was taking on Museveni openly, and denouncing his rule. Dr Besigye's candidature greatly undermined President Museveni's hitherto unrivalled national stature, raised doubts about his leadership and questions about his political invincibility. Other movement leaders watched!
Dr Besigye declared his intensions to challenge President Museveni on October 28, 2000 and virtually remained in his house in Luzira for the rest of the year, except for one occasional visit to his home district in Rukungiri in mid November, and a few visits around the country to open office branch offices in December. With highly limited financial resources, and denied open support from key movement leaders, Besigye was a lone movement deserter supported by no known figure except his wife Winnie Byanyima and Sam Njuba. Besigye's core support thus, came to be Museveni's historical opponents in the old and discredited political parties. Yet, with only 65 days between the day he was nominated as presidential candidate on January 7th, 2001 and election-day on march 12th, 2001, Besigye almost tilted the political ground against Museveni. Groups of people, mainly volunteers raised money, cars and other logistics to promote his candidature. The nation got totally polarised and fears of a military conflict between pro Besigye and pro Museveni army officers were rife. By early February, government deployed selected units of the army to patrol the city, and many senior army officers came out openly to campaign for Museveni while many others quietly and secretly supported Besigye. On polling-day, Military Police was deployed to every inch of Kampala city in fear of... Your guess is good as mine. People were turned away from polling stations because someone had already ticked their names. The race was characterised by unprecedented violence that included beatings, torture and killings. Yet Besigye officially got 29 percent of the vote and Museveni 69 percent. In truth, without the rigging, Museveni's vote was about 56 to 59 percent. About 10 to 13 percent was stolen for him. The last opinion poll by The New Vision gave Museveni 52 percent and Besigye 38 percent; the last opinion poll by The Monitor gave Museveni 54 percent and Besigye 34 percent. Plus the killings, torture and intimidation of peasants, Museveni's electoral weakness was greatly exposed. Yet, Museveni in 2001 had many advantages: first, despite the differences key movement pillars had with the president, they decided to continue to openly support him, albeit with less enthusiasm compared to 1996. In fact, President Museveni made repeated telephone calls to his erstwhile friend, Eriya Kategaya, virtually begging him to make a statement on Besigye's candidature. Unlike his current followers, Museveni understood that Kategaya's word on Besigye's candidature carried immense weight within the movement and country. Tactfully, Kategaya in a Sunday Vision interview declared his support for Museveni and said Besigye should have taken his concerns and desire to run for the presidency through movement organs, but refused to denounce the issues around which Besigye had declared his candidature. Museveni breathed a sigh of relief. Other movement pillars like Bidandi Ssali, John Kazoora, Amanya Mushega, Miria Matembe, James Wapakhabulo, Augustine Ruzindana etc openly supported Museveni. To underestimate the following these people have in the movement and the country is a delusion. In any third term referendum, or the 2006 presidency elections, Museveni will have to contend with these names plus many more like Maj. Gen. Mugisha Muntu, Maj. Bright Rwamirama, Mathew Rukikaire, Jack Sabiti, David Pulkol, the list is endless. The opposition to Museveni has changed and fundamentally so because it is not the old and discredited political par ties, but his very political allies and long time friends within the movement. Secondly, Museveni in 2001 was supported by the two mainstream churches (however much he would openly like to claim that he does not involve the church in politics). There had been fear among Museveni's strategists that the Catholic Church may support Besigye because his wife, Winnie Byanyima, is a staunch catholic. One day, the cardinal, Emmanuel Wamala, was invited to state house at midnight to discuss with the president the strategy of how to utilise the bishops and other priests to mobilise their parishioners in support of Museveni's candidature. The leaders of the Catholic Church and the Church of Uganda (both laity and clerics) pledged to support Museveni in a series of negotiated deals. Church support is critical in any election in Uganda because of our history. The church is even more important because in the absence of political parties, there is no any other organised institution that has a structure with a hierarchy running from Kampala to the grassroots across the country outside of the Local Council (LC) system. In the third term referendum, and the presidential elections of 2006 (if he wins the referendum), Museveni will have to contend with the churches too. The writing is on the wall for Museveni and his third term company. In May 2003, the Uganda Joint Christian Council (UJCC), which brings together church leaders of all the major Christian denominations in Uganda, held a meeting at Nsambya Sharing Hall. There was no prior mobilisation, no money changed hands, no campaigns, but the conference unanimously adopted a resolution rejecting the proposal to amend the constitution to remove term limits on the president. This should have an important signal to Museveni and pro third-term company that across the country, there is a strong current opposed to a president for life. Thirdly, and possibly most important issue in favour of Museveni in 2001 was national goodwill. In fact Museveni's supporters realised that Besigye was raising critical issues which undermined public trust in the continuation of Museveni as president: the unending war in the north, corruption in government, tribalism etc. To bolster Museveni's stature, the campaign slogan now became that Museveni had one last constitutional term, and once given he would professionalise the army, and organise Uganda's first ever peaceful transfer of power. Around this issue lay Museveni's greatest strength, and the country, desperate to give him a dignified exit from power, voted for him. The fourth issue is related to the third: Museveni has won many battles in Uganda before, military and electoral. However, they have been predicated upon him articulating a national interest. For a third term referendum or a presidential candidature in 2006, Museveni will for the first time be articulating a pecuniary interest i.e. that he wants to become a presidential monarch. Also important, President Museveni has always cut the figure of a leader to be trusted. That he made a commitment in 2001 to the electorate to organise a peaceful transfer of power and he callously reneged on it will be important ammunition his opponents will use to say the man cannot be trusted for whatever he promises. Have you noticed that the strongest and most vocal voices against the third term are mainly movement pillars and Members of Parliament from Ankole region, President Museveni's home area? Well, this would be the first time for any president in Africa, and even Museveni, to win an election when his own home district/region is opposing him. Without a home base, Museveni's electoral fortunes will flounder. To whip the western region, especially Ankole into submission, he will need to employ unprecedented repression and brutality that the only outcome will be for him to be picked from a spider hold in Rwakitura and dragged to the international criminal court like Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic and Iraq's Saddam Hussein. In the next article, I intend to demonstrate how Museveni's peasant support is overstated, and why the anti third term forces have the strength to give him a resounding defeat at the polls if only they can feel confident about their cause, and their ability to mobilise for it. |
© 2004 The Monitor Publications
Help STOP spam with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* -------------------------------------------- This service is hosted on the Infocom network http://www.infocom.co.ug
