By Richard M. Kavuma
April 2, 2003
The Minister for Local Government Jaberi Bidandi Ssali yesterday said he is "very disappointed" that the Movement has cleared President Yoweri Museveni to run for a third term.
Sounding distraught, Mr Bidandi told the BBC radio that he still hoped for a turn-around by the time the issue goes to Parliament.
"This issue is going to be around for nearly a year. Hopefully by that time people will have made up their minds and may be to the contrary," he said.
Mr Bidandi was the first senior Movement leader to call for a discussion of a post-Museveni Uganda in November 2001.
He has since also consistently called for a return to open multiparty politics.
The National Conference (NC) of the ruling Movement on Monday endorsed the recommendation by the National Executive Committee ((NEC) to open up to competitive party politics, subject to a referendum.
However, the NC also recommended that Mr Museveni should be allowed to run again for the presidency after his second and last constitutional term ends in 2006.
Yesterday Mr Bidandi said that he believes Mr Museveni is genuine but that some of the people around him were scheming.
"1/4Definitely those people around him played the game of scheming," Mr Bidandi said in apparent reference to those who had engineered the "third term" resolution.
He said that the people who played the game are "very senior people".
"The whole thing was orchestrated," he said. Mr Bidandi lamented that most delegates at both the NC and NEC meetings did not express their own views.
"The whole thing was wrapped in representative memoranda," he said. "But there are so many things taken for granted by the movers of this motion," he said in what sounded like a veiled warning.
© 2003 The Monitor Publications
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