After the 2011 elections, FDC founding president Dr Kizza Besigye announced that he would not participate in future elections until meaningful reforms were in place.
He had wanted the opposition to back Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago. But after intense pressure from within the opposition ranks, the FDC strongman finally gave in, becoming a subject of public criticism for going against his word.
Despite the wide criticism, Besigye has not publicly explained his change of heart, and the reasons remained within a circle of his associates until Kira Municipality MP Ssemujju Ibrahim Nganda opened up on the matter on Tuesday.
Speaking at a national symposium held in Kampala under the theme, “Deepening democracy in the aftermath of the 2016 elections,” Ssemujju, who was the spokesman of Besigye’s campaign team, said the FDC strongman was forced back into the race by various opposition actors.
On the sidelines of the symposium, Ssemujju told The Observer the pressure started from a meeting Besigye had with MPs who belonged to the Ssuubi 2011 pressure group that had been called to take stock of their 2011 election experiences and how to forge ahead.
The pressure group mainly brought together DP supporters who were opposed to the 2010 election of Norbert Mao as their party’s president general.
“In that meeting, he repeated his pronouncement not to stand again for president and we asked whether he was running away from the struggle because he had been telling us that we were in the struggle to liberate the country,” Ssemujju said.
The opposition chief whip’s revelations came after a presentation by Dr Sallie Simba Kayunga, a lecturer at the department of Political science at Makerere University, in which he questioned why the opposition continues to participate in elections they know they will not win.
“Besigye was criticised so much for making that U-turn,” Ssemujju said.
“He had pressure from internal and public audiences, and sometimes we got disturbed by the criticism in the media maybe because they [media] didn’t know what had happened.”
LUKWAGO
Besigye was convinced that the fight Lukwago had put up against the government’s interference with the operations of Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) put him in a good position to lead the opposition charge against President Museveni.
In subsequent meetings convened by Butambala MP Muhammad Muwanga Kivumbi at Esera country hotel in Najjeera, near Kampala, the Ssuubi group resolved to develop a strategy that would best work for the opposition.
Eventually, it was resolved that Lukwago returns to KCCA and Besigye leads the opposition to pressurise the government to institute electoral reforms. This was around the same time that FDC MPs, notably Nathan Nandala-Mafabi (Budadiri West) and Roland Kaginda Mugume (Rukungiri Municipality), were leading delegations to Besigye’s Kasangati home in Wakiso district to ask him to stand again for president.
Eventually, Besigye contested for the FDC presidential flag against party president Maj Gen Mugisha Muntu, in a tough race that nearly left the party split in two camps.
Besigye took the FDC flag to The Democratic Alliance (TDA), a loose coalition of opposition political parties where he was abandoned by some of the DP politicians previously allied to the Ssuubi group. They instead supported former prime minister Amama Mbabazi.
Among them was Busiro East MP Medard Lubega Sseggona who confirmed being part of the Najjeera meetings but denied that any resolution on Besigye’s 2016 candidacy was passed.
“I have never been part of a meeting that passed such a resolution,” Sseggona said.
“In the meetings, he kept telling us that he would not stand again, and asked us to look for another candidate. That is how some of us ended up with [Mbabazi].”
PERSECUTION
Since election day on February 18, Besigye has had run-ins with the police that have set a base outside the four-time presidential candidate’s residence. Out of prison on bail over treason charges, Besigye has also been detained by the police on several occasions but released without charge.
In his paper; Opposition politics in the aftermath of elections, Dr Ssimba said the state’s persecution of Besigye had, instead, made him a hero. His assertions are based on the official presidential elections that show that Besigye’s support had increased by 55.4 per cent from the previous (2011) elections, while Museveni had only gained 10 per cent.
While he argued that the ruling party should get worried about Besigye’s tremendous gains in 2016, the overwhelming majority in parliament keeps NRM in a comfortable position. FDC, the leading opposition party, has 36 MPs in the 10th Parliament compared to NRM’s 302.
sadabkk@observer.ug