Smarting from FDC’s humiliating loss of the Kyadondo East parliamentary seat to Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu aka Bobi Wine, former presidential candidate Dr Kizza Besigye has said it is high time political parties abandoned their partisan approach to politics.
Besigye, the founding president of FDC, the leading opposition party – based on its numbers in Parliament, failed to get party supporters to rally behind their candidate Apollo Kantinti.
Kantinti, who was elected in 2016 with a slim margin, was thrown out of parliament after the courts agreed with petitioner Sitenda Ssebalu of NRM that the Electoral Commission had mishandled the election.
The resulting by-election threatened to tear the opposition party apart with some party enthusiasts openly siding with Kyagulanyi who stood as an independent but is a well known opposition and Besigye supporter.
On the campaign trail, Besigye urged the electorate to re-elect Kantinti.
But a day after Kyagulanyi’s victory, Besigye told journalists outside Nakawa Chief Magistrate’s court that the musician’s landslide victory did not come as a surprise to him because voters had openly told him on the campaign trail that they wanted Bobi Wine.
Below is an abridged version of Besigye’s statement:
It should be another reminder that people at this stage are not focussing on political parties; they are focusing on regaining control of their country.
They are clear that the struggle is a liberation struggle, not a partisan competition. Many of our leaders are not clear about this fact, that we are in a liberation phase, not a partisan competition phase, where party platforms, policy platforms are competing.
The people know that better than the leaders. The people see who will take the struggle ahead and they rally around that.
That is what they have been doing with [Erias] Lukwago, the lord mayor of Kampala, and some people think that they don’t appreciate parties; they appreciate parties and the role of freedom of assembly, but they also know that the phase of the struggle is one where we must have a front that brings all those that want change together.
First deal with the dictator, and then have the freedom to compete among the different platforms.
It is again to underscore the point that no one should be excited that because Bobi Wine has gone to parliament, parliament will behave differently.
Parliament as an institution is an institution of the dictator, not an institution of the people of Uganda. The voices of the people, which are there are useful as a stage to advance the voice of the people but it will not change how parliament behaves.
That parliament, left on its own, will remove the age-limit for Museveni; it will amend the Constitution to give power to the regime to take over our land.
The struggle for freedom, the struggle for liberation is not going to be won in parliament; it is going to be won outside parliament. A few positive voices in parliament will have to unite [with] voices outside parliament to regain the country from the clutch of the dictator.
sadabkk@observer.ug