Rtd Col Kiiza Besigye Suffers From a liberation syndrome and should Leave The Leadership Mantle To Rtd Maj Gen Mugisha Muntu

Rtd Col Kiiza Besigye Suffers From a liberation syndrome and should Leave The Leadership Mantle To Rtd Maj Gen Mugisha Muntu

·         Besigye has Failed to Graduate From A Ranting Politician With A Message Of Retribution To A Statesman With Progressive Policy Alternatives

·         His Obsession with the Kenyatta-Mandela Brand of Politics of Provoking Police to Unleash Tear Gas and Imprisonment Is Outdated

·         Besigye Has Been Thriving On A Rented Support Base

Early this week Retired Col Kiiza Besigye picked the nomination forms expressing his desire to contest for the FDC presidency which is a precursor to the biggest job in the land, the Ugandan presidency, for the fourth consecutive time.

While it’s clearly his constitutional right to contest as many times as he wants, he still has to make a reflection about the brand of politics he has been employing since 2001 when he was forced into the political fray by circumstances of the time in 2001.

It must be stressed that Besigye has had a very difficult time in convincing the electorate to vote for him because of the brand of politics he has been championing.

When he first came onto the political scene some 15 years ago he caused quite a stir in the country because of the desire that people had for an alternative leadership.

But he then bungled up his project by unleashing a revenge-laden campaign that intended to overturn everything. His campaign slogan was ‘agende’ (president Museveni has to go by all means), while his campaign symbol was a sledge hammer, which he purportedly introduced to convince Ugandans that he would use to uproot president Museveni.

By doing this, he made a fundamental mistake of basing the foundation of his presidency on anger with the intention of purging rather than improving the existing government which consisted many of his bush war colleagues.

Rented Support

Although he commanded some support in some parts of the country, it was clear that he was thriving on rented support. What do I mean by rented support?

By rented support I mean those Ugandans who had either got tired of president Museveni or had never had any liking for Museveni before. Rented support is temporary because it’s not usually based on issues but mostly on emotion and ulterior motives.

Besigye therefore scored considerable support in all the parts of the country that were inhabited by a large section of Ugandans who harbored anti-Museveni sentiments.

And the voting trends indeed showed that Besigye scored highly in parts of the country which were already waging war against president Museveni like northern Uganda that already had an anti-Museveni civil war led by Joseph Kony and parts of eastern Ugandan like Teso which had also resisted in the late 1980s.  

The point am laboring here is that  Besigye never marshaled any political support of his own because he was riding on an already made anti-Museveni section of the country in northern and eastern Uganda and parts of central Uganda.

In fact, Besigye got support in areas which former presidential aspirant DP leader Mr. Paul Kawanga Semogerere had enjoyed massive support during the 1996 presidential elections.

If you look into the records of the 1996 presidential elections you will realize that Kawanga Semogerere defeated president Museveni in most parts of northern and eastern Uganda and many urban areas including Kampala.

These are the areas which Besigye came and dominated in the subsequent elections of 2001, 2006 and 2011.

And I think it’s fair to regard that support as rented support because it was always there for the taking for whichever opposition candidate who stood to oppose Museveni.

Besigye’s Los Of Support

However we need to realize that during the course of the years, Besigye started losing the rented support he had enjoyed in the past.

Why did he start losing that support?

It was because Besigye failed to graduate from a ranting leader with vengeance as his campaign message to a statesmen politician with radical policies aimed at transforming the country. His presidential ambitions seemed to be motivated more by anger than alternative polices.

On many occasions Besigye sunk too low that he normally had spats with police officers and took the confrontations personal by warning them of the consequences of apprehending him.   Yet these are the men and women he needed to work with when he became president.  

With time Ugandans got tired of the Besigye brand.   

Ugandans with some degree of rational thinking who had genuine disagreements with president Museveni and would have wished to join the opposition were put off by Kiiza Besigye’s irrational political rantings.

Many of them simply skipped voting-which explains why there was massive voter apathy.

Most of the anti-Museveni Ugandans but who were disgusted with the Besigye brand thought that his last defeat in the 2011 elections was his last attempt at the presidency.

And it was with a sigh of relief that he later announced that he wouldn’t contest again, by stepping down and allowing a more rational and well composed Rtd Mugish Muntu to emerge.

But this week KB threw a spanner in the wheels by picking the nomination forms with intentions of running again.

But what message does he poses?

How will he fare in an environment where the rented support has already been eroded by the emergence of new political players?

The Liberation Syndrome

Besigye’s problem stems from the misguided belief (shared by many unschooled individuals) that someone cannot emerge as leader of an African country without practically sacrificing either by enduring tear gas and jail or practically fighting a war. It’s fair to say that Besigye suffers from a liberation syndrome.

This notion is derived from the suffering which many pre-colonial African leaders suffered at the hands of the colonialists. Some of them endured long jail terms like South African iconic leader the late Nelson Mandela (who was incarcerated for 27 years) and Jomo Kenyatta who also spent many years in prison.

It so happens that the likes of Besigye were infected with this brand of politics which explains why he enjoys confrontations with the police. Yet the times have changed from that type of politics to issue-based political agitations.

Today, world politics has graduated from liberation politics to politics of articulating alternative polices. Today leaders are judged by their views on climate change, economic models, emigration policies, social policy etc.

You find that while Kenyan founding President Jomo Kenyatta suffered jail to become president of Kenya, his son Uhuru Kenyatta simply had to convince Kenyans to become president.

Likewise, while Nelson Mandela had to lose 27 years of his freedom in prison, his predecessors, Thabo Mbeki, Jacob Zuma simply had to reason their way to the south African presidency.

Therefore Besigye’S obsession with the Kenyatta-Mandela politics simply make him an odd-man out in the 2016 presidential contest and he should live by his earlier decision to retire and probably give guidance to the likes of Gen Mugisha Muntu to take FDC forward.

Ends 

The author Fred Daka Kamwada is a senior journalist and blogger; reach him on kamwadafred@yahoo.com