By Our Reporters
If not prudently managed, the impending election for pioneer Bugiri Municipality MP Seat is in many ways going to leave Patrick Oboi Amuriat’s FDC weakened and more divided. Firstly, the race which commences next month with nominations is already exposing Bugiri’s biggest opposition fish Wafula Ogutu’s leadership deficiencies. On social media, where he is very active and easily visible, Wafula is already being criticized for seeking to serve his parochial FDC party interests rather than being broad-minded. He has already prompted fellow FDC leaders like Proscovia Salaam Musumba and Nandala Mafabi to join him in demonizing Asuman Basalirwa who clearly stands a higher chance to win that seat for the opposition. The only crime making the clearly well suited Basalirwa unfit for the Bugiri MP Seat is that he supported John Patrick Amama Mbabazi and not Col Kizza Besigye for the position of President in 2016. Whereas clearly this is time to consolidate the broader anti-Museveni struggle by growing it at least by one more additional MP Seat, the trio is seeing this as an opportunity for payback to avenge Basalirwa’s choice in 2016. They won’t tell you what difference one man Asuman Basalirwa’s support or vote for Dr. Besigye would have made on the ultimate outcome of 2016. This is something Dr. Besigye himself has always found very intriguing insisting leaders should look at the bigger picture of things beyond party lines and who supported who at the previous election. Whereas it’s not very unexpected for Hon Nandala to misjudge political situations of this nature, Salaam is more surprising because she is ordinarily expected to come off as more sophisticated than she has turned out so far on the Bugiri matter. But the bigger problem is the divisive toll this could have on FDC and specifically POA’s own backyard. Already progressive-thinking leaders in the POA camp, like Francis Mwijukye, are already uncomfortable with the anti-Basalirwa approach the trio has taken so far on the Basalirwa bid. Some of them have since vowed to do the right thing by either defying the party position by openly driving to Bugiri to campaign for Basalirwa or at best stay away from that campaign. That will have deprived the proponents of the so-called struggle of an opportunity to have all the big opposition guns in Bugiri whose voters and residents would emerge more sensitized and emboldened by a united opposition message by the time the by-election is done. The bigger risk is to lose the position to NRM which already enjoys a comfortable numerical strength in Parliament. To win and win convincingly the opposition must work towards a joint campaign front and the best person to carry that joint opposition flag is Asuman Basalirwa. Briefly; his credentials are that; he is well tested and has consistently opposed Museveni’s NRM since his days at Makerere. He has never contradicted himself. Even in 2016 when he supported JPAM, which FDCs considered betrayal, he acted in good faith and in obedience to the broad TDA position which ideally was to front joint candidates at every level. He was party president of JEMA a party that chose to stay in TDA after Dr. Besigye’s FDC had quit. Just imagine that dilemma for a party president. These are basic broad things the FDC trio needs to understand and understand them correctly and learn to move on as opposed to being hostages of history. Something not very exciting happened in Bobi Wine’s Kyaddondo East just last year and lessons ought to have been learnt. There is a lot more we could have said about Basalirwa but we consider it unnecessary for space and time considerations because in any case his profile as an anti-Museveni activist is well known nationally. This doesn’t mean he doesn’t have flaws; he is only human and we all have our own fallibilities. The most prudent thing now is to agree on the best opposition candidate and one doesn’t necessarily have to be an angel. He/she just has to be a candidate strong enough to win the seat for the opposition. In any case a good commander is one who fights with the army he has rather than one he wished he had. The likes of Wafula ought to be reminded that it’s possible to support the best opposition candidate at hand and grow the FDC party in Bugiri at the same time. There is no way the two can be said to be mutually exclusive because they aren’t. Prudent decision-making doesn’t weaken a political party; it only strengthens it otherwise you risk polarizing even the modest support you have as opposition in the entire Bugiri district. Many will ask what difference does it make for the opposition to win mere Bugiri Municipality. Our submission is you need that seat to build momentum with which to gradually capture the rest of the seats and drive out the NRM in Bugiri.
THE K’LA EXAMPLE;
Even Kampala whose Parliamentary representation is today 100% opposition, started like that. For many years constituencies like Nakawa and Central were no go zones for the opposition until the Erias Lukwagos and Nabillah Nagayi emerged in 2006 and drove out NRM adherents like Francis Babu and Margaret Zziwa. Nakawa was to remain unliberated until 2016 when Mike Kabaziguruka floored NRM strongman Fred Ruhindi. All we are saying is that the momentum that gradually drove out NRM from Central and Nakawa came from the two Rubagas, the two Makindyes and the two Kawempes where the opposition had captured years earlier. So even in Bugiri, there will always be a starting point; and it’s this impending Municipality election in our view. Fielding multiple opposition candidates partly cost opposition municipalities like Lugazi and this is something a senior leader of Wafula’s stature doesn’t need lectures about. In Paul Mwiru’s Jinja, DP backed FDC candidate not because they couldn’t find a candidate to field. It was simply based on the correct recognition that Mwiru stood a better chance and deserved to be consolidated. Even when he is clearly the best thing the opposition can field against the NRM in Bugiri, Basalirwa has acted with humility reaching out and seeking concurrence with fellow opposition leaders. When Muntu was still party President, Basalirwa reached out to him regarding the future Bugiri Municipality elections and did the same for Mao and UPC when Otunnu still reigned.
POA B’MES HOSTAGE;
Basalirwa has equally tried to reach out to POA the new FDC leader. However, it seems POA is increasingly becoming reluctant or even fearful to tell the Wafula, Nandala and Wafula trio the uncomfortable truths about Bugiri even when the writing is clearly on the wall. There is also another group of FDC diehards who insist that Basalirwa must be punished for supporting Mbabazi. This sounds strange but it’s very true as the same group even resisted Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago’s decision to give him some assignments at KCCA. Their reasoning was the same; that Lukwago had betrayed KB by giving such a juicy assignment to someone for whom Besigye wasn’t candidate for President in 2016. Seeing this was being simplistic, Lukwago wore a thick skin and overlooked those objections and gave Basalirwa the job because he merited so. Even now those opposing him aren’t saying he is incompetent or not trustable. They are only saying he didn’t support KB. Some of such people can be very vindictive that even if Basalirwa was to apologize, they won’t forgive him. As for POA, he was recently supposed to meet with JEEMA elder Kibirige Mayanja to hammer out some consensus but he didn’t show up. Neither was he reachable on his phone at the time of the pre-arranged interaction. Its highly probable POA developed cold feet on realizing how strongly the powerful trio was determined to have this as payback time against Basalirwa.
As usual KB is still silent and apparently prefers that the leaders of the two parties JEMA and FDC hammer out a consensus because that is ideally their work and he comes in to co-implement whatever they will have agreed upon. Sources close to him say KB believes it’s not too late for a joint candidate to be agreed upon between Basalirwa and FDC’s Eunice Namatende (aka Mandha Mayaaka). Meanwhile, other non FDC Besigye allies have already declared support for Basalirwa and these include Muwanga Kivumbi, Betty Nambooze, Mathias Mpuuga and other like-minded non FDC politicians. Even the Mao DP faction, selfless as before, have already declared support for Basalirwa just like they did in Jinja for Mwiru and are already doing for FDC in Rukungiri. This is something the FDC must reciprocate (not just to appease DP but because it’s the right thing) and for this to happen, being the biggest opposition leader in Bugiri, Wafula Ogutu must show leadership in a manner that is expected of a statesman of his stature. He ought to be encouraged to realize that it’s possible to love Dr. KB and also endorse the best candidate in the service of the broader struggle. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. For comments, call/text/whatsapp us on 0703164755!
