UGANDA ELECTIONS 2016
The debate whether Rtd Col. Dr. Kiiza Besigye should contest,
after three previous unsuccessful attempts in 2001, 2006 and 2011 is now
immaterial. Going by the mass response to his candidature, Dr Besigye is
officially the President of the people. The feasibility of his candidacy squarely
depends on how we define the change that we want.
Given the constraints imposed on the Opposition, and on Dr.
Besigye himself, he has demonstrated that jumping the traps of the tyrant requires
perseverance.
Since 1999, Dr. Kiiza Besigye showed consistency and insistence, which
affirmed his resolve to cause change. By challenging the status quo, Besigye
exposed it adequately. In the process, Besigye paid the price, but gained
rhythm with the disenfranchised masses.
Besigye has the mastery of invoking this sense of vulnerability in
President Museveni that renders the President helpless, aggressive, and morose.
Each time Museveni gets a competent opposition, he panics, to respond by
mobilizing violence against the opponent. Besigye's public humiliations -
flogging, teargasing, curtailing, detaining, violating, false charges etc –
attests to this rudimentary anti-democratic tradition. Even with those
adversities, Dr Besigye showed inconceivable resilience to stay afloat and relevant
to the causes of the people. It is such qualities that the masses admire about
him!
In the last fifteen years, Dr. Besigye endured torture that became
the trademark of the partisan Ugandan Police. By torturing Dr. Besigye, the
state was creating a Messiah – someone whose experiences allowed the masses to
witness and understand the excesses of a dictatorship. Torture made Besigye
stronger and more resolute in his mission.
Despite all these, Dr Besigye talks about his experiences without
acrimony in his voice. If Dr. Besigye were that angry a person, surely, his
supporters could have attacked the likes of Arinaitwe and Afande Omalla. Instead,
Besigye always explained that these Officers are pandering for survival, a
condition he plans to change through the ballot. Under Besigye’s situation, it
would be easy to understandable getting angry with the Police and State agents
for their violation of human rights. It is even harder to understand Dr
Besigyes exercise of self-constraint. Ugandans must embrace those revolutionary
traits.
Then there are those who discounted the impact of Dr. Besigye's
activism and self-sacrifice in the struggle against dictatorship. For them,
wresting power from a tyrant is equitable to a romantic affairs complete with
bouquet of Red Roses and dinner. If theirs is not an illusion, then
what is it?
Dr Besigye's activism is yielding him unrented support during
these nomination campaigns. While the Musevenists are renting the crowd and
using photoshop to enlarge the crowd size, Besigye’s are an organic mammoth
crowd. Besigye has even set a new milestone with a massive and unexpectedly
donations of food and money to support their President.
This is a new phenomenon in Uganda's politics where voters were
undermined with petty bribery of little money, salt, sugar, soap and empty
promises. The strong show of the crowd to Dr Besigye wherever he goes signifies
the admiration for the man as an instrument of change. The masses are saying openly
that they will collect from the corrupted State and fund their revolution.
After all, President Museveni steals money from the poor to lavish the rich.
This is how you know that the zeal for change is no longer an abstract, obscure
agitation - it is real.
The major task of the Elect Besigye Team now is to design and
communicate to the masses concrete strategies to avert election rigging from
the polling stations. With the era of social media, the opposition can have an on-the-spot
monitoring and reporting of vote tallies by way of text and video. The people should be guided to protect their votes from the NRM vultures by any means possible.
END
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