One of the most sought-after endorsements this political season is the most unusual. It is from a man who, in more ordinary times, would be the one looking for the kind of blessing he is expected to give today.
Dr. Kiiza Besigye is an unwilling matchmaker.
After “losing” to Yoweri Museveni three times – his rivalry with his former Bush War colleague has also been the epic tale of the inability of the Ugandan opposition ever to rally firmly behind a single candidate. In 2006, after a brief exile and buoyed by a war time polarization between northern Uganda and the rest, his bid for president was the strongest. The north in particular adopted him as the Rukungiri Trojan horse in whose bowels they could launch a punishment of YK Museveni for his incompetent, even willfully negligent handling of the conflict with Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army. It was by all accounts a close election.
Some claim he won the election on the back of often violent voter suppression strategies adopted by YK Museveni’s supporters, some of which he bore directly, beaten, accused of rape and treason – while courts upheld the election as democratic enough by Ugandan standards. Since then his checked shirt and chains, images of him stoically enduring preventative arrest on dirty prison floors , that gold standard of severing contact between impactful opposition organizers and their political prize have become essentially the cautionary tale of the thorny path to power through the ballot – and not the bullet. Never since 1986 – when the bullet changed power holders and brought in Dr. Besigye and his revolutionary comrades led by YK Museveni has there been a change of president by the ballot.
The long reign of the Movement in its various forms – as a victorious army, democratic socialist revolution or dominant single party electoral machine all the while as YK Museveni, the supreme shapeshifter of Ugandan politics kept ahead of all and any forces of change has taken its toll on Dr. Besigye. Mainly this question has come in the form of the essential thing for all politics – a win.
Without a victory, by any means, the anxiety of being one of the closest challengers of YK Museveni has dogged Besigye. It turns out also that without the type of seismic forces such as the Northern Uganda war ( or others) big enough to create what Dr. Besigye described as a tsunami to sweep away the hegemony of the NRM, the presidential ballot had become a lonely faceoff between the opposition knight and his Dragon. Very little comfort came by way of his own party’s support. In fact, to his bewilderment all politics re-invented as Biashara (commerce). Scores trampled over themselves to win a life subsidized by taxpayer shillings especially in parliament in what is now quite ominously the rise of the political class. In the 2021 election Dr. Besigye has ruled himself out. Instead he is making the argument that what needs to change is not who is President but the entire system that depends on this version of inflationary presidentialism. Despite him however an election will go on.
But without Besigye – what kind of election would it be? How can he be anti-election ( absenting himself from the ballot) and yet remain convincingly anti-Museveni? Is he planning to become defacto Opposition President ( there is in fact a People’s Government which he heads) emeritus? Who will succeed him as agitator and sufferer in chief?
Supporters of Robert Kyagulanyi hope that he is the natural choice and they have been lobbying for Dr. Besigye’s endorsement. There are several reasons why Kyagulanyi ( Bobi Wine) needs this endorsement which require another lengthy article. Perhaps the first is his pedigree. He is a revolutionary outsider. It is true that his torture ( and what was likely an attempt on his life in Arua) have marked him for this journey but he is mostly a symbol of popular frustrations with NRMs shortcomings. Lately he is also a Trojan Horse for Buganda the way Besigye was for the disaffected North in 2006. Then there is the perennial flaw of balloting against Museveni while being in the opposition; Bobi Wine is not the single candidate of a combined opposition.
All this could change if Besigye endorsed him.
The last time I saw Besigye was at the launch of Mathew Rukikaire’s biography. He joined a panel – the only one of the kind really in recent times that showed the strain of the long years of YK Museveni’s tenure. There was Amama Mbabazi, Elly Tumwine, Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda ( so two Prime Ministers) and Dr. Besigye. Henry Tumwine was in the audience. At this event Dr. Besigye in respectful magnanimity acknowledged that the NRM, as a revolutionary vehicle, represented a real episode of historical change for the people of Uganda. The Bush War would forever be a chapter written into his and YK Museveni’s contributions to contemporary Ugandan history.
What would an endorsement of Bobi Wine mean then on his ledger, after his post-revolutionary departure with Museveni? Does this fit his claim to ally with any and all forces of reform against what he sees as YK Museveni’s obstruction of a better future?
What is clear is that an endorsement will have one real result. It would set up Bobi Wine as the defacto single opposition candidate. Besigye would, by such an endorsement, lend Bobi Wine the creed and history of earlier struggles and also emphasize with older voters that anyone is better than YK Museveni including a non-politician popstar musician. Indeed, by not just “resigning” as the Opposition’s best hope but endorsing Bobi Wine, he would demonstrate that he is true to his commitment for change – even without him as the next leader at State House.
He would almost certainly guarantee the opposite for his longtime nemesis. Without Dr. Besigye in the race – the specter of Museveni running against a lyricist younger than his own son would speak volumes about perpetual presidencies draw attention to the environment within which the NRM justifies its purpose.
Dr. Besigye chided by his detractors of not delivering an electoral victory could win by other means – rising behind the mess that is Uganda’s stillborn succession politics. It is an endorsement Bobi Wine desperately needs.
It would also be the launch, if it ever happens, of Besigye’s campaign for President in 2026.
