Quarrels, differences in strategy stand in the way of Uganda's opposition unity

With the Electoral Commission (EC) having released on July 30 a revised summary roadmap for the 2026 General Election, which scheduled the nomination of presidential candidates for October 2 and October 3 next year, the Opposition has less than a year in which to form a common front.

The need for urgent action as far as forming a common front is concerned, has always been obvious, especially given that President Museveni, who is expected to be the presidential candidate of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM), has, as he has always done every few months in the run-up to each new election cycle, been traversing the country in the name of popularising government programmes. The President is currently conducting an assessment of the performance of the Parish Development Model (PDM).

Some commentators have always equated the Opposition’s efforts at forming a joint front against Mr Museveni to the swing of a pendulum – oscillating between hope and disappointment at every point in time.

The sight of, among others, the leader of the National Unity Platform (NUP), Mr Robert Kyagulanyi, better known as Bobi Wine; the leader of the Alliance for National Transformation (ANT), Gen Mugisha Muntu; the leader of the Conservative Party (CP), Mr John Ken Lukyamuzi; a representative of the People’s Progressive Party, Mr Saddam Gayira; Leader of the Opposition in Parliament (LoP) Joel Ssenyonyi and; Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago signing a joint statement was a swing towards that hope.

However, less than two hours after the issuance of the joint statement, there was a swing back to disappointment as Mr Patrick Amuriat, the president of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) Najjanankumbi faction, appeared to pull in a different direction.

Disgruntlement

Taking to X, formerly Twitter, Mr Amuriat claimed that FDC had been excluded from the meeting that culminated in the signing of the joint statement.

“FDC weren’t invited! Clearly FDC we’re the unwanted Opposition group in pursuit of freedom. No matter what, we will move on by ourselves,” he wrote in a post in which Mr Kyagulanyi, Mr Ssenyonyi, Mr Lukwago and the official platforms of NUP and ANT were tagged.

Mr Amuriat has since conceded that efforts were made to reach him, but that it was not possible to access him on account of the different time zones between Uganda and the United States of America (USA), where he was at the time Mr Ssenyonyi tried to reach him.

The FDC leader, however, contends that Mr Ssenyonyi did not do enough to get his party to participate in the meeting.

“I only hold this office. It is not personal to holder. There is a whole presidency in the FDC. If these people had wanted us to come, they should have really written. There are better ways of doing this. We are an institution. Even if I am out of office, there is always going to be someone in the office. So that is our bone of contention. We believe strongly that this was intentional. It was intended that we should not be part of this,” Mr Amuriat says.

However, whereas Mr Amuriat was talking of exclusion, there are those who think FDC under him has been distancing itself from activities of the Opposition.

“I think the Najjanankumbi group has very interesting approaches. I think they were the missing group when we were all making a commitment to the peace dialogue. Now again when we are just saying ‘free Dr Besigye’ they are the missing group and they do not want to say so” Ms Alice Alaso, the coordinator of ANT, said.

Questioning methods

It should, however, be noted that it was not just issues around exclusion that Mr Amuriat raised. He raised questions about the effectiveness of the Opposition’s strategies.

“Signing papers will not help. Doing the same thing that hasn’t worked before… mobilise for protests, that is what will unchain @kizzabesigye1,” he tweeted.

During an interview he gave Monitor on Thursday, Mr Amuriat added that the signing of the document had been done for the cameras.

“Signing up papers and making noise, the kind of noise that they are making in boardrooms, is not going to help Dr Kizza Besigye get out of jail and those people do it knowing that they are doing it for a show, for window dressing, for political expediency,” he argued.

Ms Alaso thinks those are questioning effectiveness and strategies at this point in time miss the point.

“What we just want is the world to know that the current incarceration of Dr Besigye is a serious issue to us in the Opposition. It is an affront to all sorts of freedoms and liberties of our country and as a united Opposition, irrespective of our strategies, we stand with Dr Besigye, and we want Dr Besigye out of the General Court Martial. If there is any matter, let them take him to a civilian court. That is all we want,” Ms Alaso says.

Mr Ssenyonyi, whose idea it was to convene the joint meeting, challenged Mr Amuriat to come up with “superior ideas”.

“We cannot say we know everything or that we have the best strategy about all these different things. We know that we are going to face numerous scenarios. So, if he has some kind of strategy which is superior, he is welcome to share it with us. If he does not want to share it with us, he can implement it if what we are doing is inferior or cannot work. No one is stopping him,” Mr Ssenyonyi said.

Siege mentality

It would, however, appear that there is more to the quarrels between Mr Amuriat and Mr Ssenyonyi on one hand, and between FDC and other parties in the political Opposition.

Mr Amuriat says he is aware that the fragmentation and infighting in the political Opposition only plays into the hands of the ruling NRM, but he seems to be more disturbed that the leadership of NUP and other parties deliberately continue to hobnob with those who have broken ranks with FDC.

“We are not going to support anybody who goes against any political party. That is why you have seen us not going out to support Mathias Mpuuga, or Lubega Mukaaku and Michael Mabikke [of the recently launched Democratic Alliance], but you could see the welcome that our friends in NUP gave to the rebels and dissenting voices from the FDC. They showed that they could cooperate with them just really because they thought that way, they could hurt the FDC,” Mr Amuriat said.

He claimed that some parties in the Opposition continue to treat FDC rebels as if they are still officials of the party. That was apparent when he sent out his tweets on Monday.

“@EriasLukwago @FDC does not represent us,” he wrote. It was a position that he alluded to again on Thursday.

“We in the FDC have had our challenges that continue to play out. If you look at the document signed by the so-called pro-democracy activists, Lukwago is still posturing as an official of the FDC, which he is not. He knows that, but that is entertained by the office of all the other parties. He signs off as PFF and FDC, which he is not,” he argues.

Whereas Amuriat does not agree that signing such a document would have any impact, he says the quality of the document should have been better.

“I think the document should have actually been drafted better, giving room for every political organisation that believes in freedom. I am even wondering why, for example, Mpuuga was not invited. Because if Lukwago and the PFF were invited, why wasn’t the Democratic Alliance invited?” he wondered.

It should be remembered that in the run-up to the 2021 General Election, the biggest impediment to talks aimed at forming a joint front against the NRM was the suspicions with which FDC viewed other political parties.

Suspicions

In an interview that he gave Monitor in mid-2020, Mr Amuriat claimed that whereas FDC had always been open to engaging others to form a common front against the NRM, some of those with which it has been engaging have never come to the negotiating table with clean hands.

Some of the actors during talks such as the failed The Democratic Alliance (TDA), had come with bad faith against FDC.

“Some actors were backstabbers, who weren’t keen on the coalition. Some have since gone to the NRM and others have, for no clear reason, turned into some of FDC’s worst foes. If we are to have talks, they have to be focused and we have to know the intentions of those who are participating,” Mr Amuriat said in that interview.

It would appear that the party’s position of viewing every other actor in the Opposition with suspicion has never changed.

Watchers of developments at FDC now accuse Mr Amuriat and the leadership at the Najjanankumbi-based political outfit of having developed a siege mentality since November 2022 when the party’s former president and presidential candidate, Dr Besigye, told a meeting of the party’s National Council that the party had been infiltrated with “dirty” money believed to have been doled out by the NRM.

Dr Besigye said the problem with the investigations started with how the committee was appointed.
After Dr Besigye had made the revelations regarding the “dirty” money, before the national council sitting in November 2022, a decision was taken to establish a committee to investigate the matter.

“Amuriat and [secretary general] Nandala Mafabi feel that they are under attack. They see their former colleagues who have since left to form the Peoples’ Front for Freedom (PFF) and others in the political Opposition who do not agree with them as some of those who are attacking them. Their focus is now on how to protect and defend themselves against those perceived enemies, who they think want to politically annihilate them,” an FDC MP told Sunday Monitor on condition of anonymity.

The legislator argues that the duo has, as a result, become more belligerent. It is not difficult to see where the FDC legislator is coming from.

In one of his tweets on X, Mr Amuriat gave the impression that the organisers of Monday’s meeting in Parliament’s Conference Room A might have been misled into believing that Mr Lukwago was representing his party.

NUP targeting FDC?

Whereas Mr Amuriat agrees that, the political Opposition, it would for now appear that the leadership in the Najjanankumbi outfit perceive NUP as its biggest problem and threat.

During Thursday’s interview with Monitor, Mr Amuriat claimed that NUP had ridden on the back of FDC in order to emerge as the biggest Opposition grouping.

“From 2018, NUP rode on the back of FDC. They demonised FDC. They said all sorts of things about us and that was in a bid to lift themselves, to prop themselves up politically. In other words, the emergence of the NUP was really based on the ability to demonise FDC and Dr Kizza Besigye. He had failed several times, when Dr Besigye was still on good terms with us, they said FDC is working with NRM,” Mr Amuriat said.
Mr Ssenyonyi declined to discuss NUPs alleged blackmail of FDC.

“We do not want to spend too much time on small quarrels. We want to focus on the more critical issue,” he said.

Chances

With such deep suspicions between two of the biggest political parties, one wonders whether the leaders of the two political parties and other leaders in the Opposition can pull a rabbit out of the hat and hold talks that can deliver a united front against the NRM.

Ms Alaso believes it is possible, but only if parties in the Opposition build bridges and develop mutual respect for one another.

“First, we need to build bridges. There must be assurances that nobody is going to undermine the other, but most important, is that we respect each other’s strategies even when we do not necessarily agree or do not necessarily participate in a given strategy,” Mr Alaso says.

But if the snipping between the parties is anything to go by, that will not be happening anytime soon.

The need for urgent action as far as forming a common front is concerned has always been obvious, especially given that President Museveni, who is expected to be the presidential candidate of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM), has, as he has always done every few months in the run-up to each new election cycle, been traversing the country in the name of popularising government programmes. The President is currently conducting an assessment of the performance of the Parish Development Model (PDM).

The sight of, among others, the leader of the National Unity Platform (NUP), Mr Robert Kyagulanyi; the leader of the Alliance for National Transformation (ANT), Gen Mugisha Muntu; and the leader of the Conservative Party (CP), Mr John Ken Lukyamuzi signing a joint statement was a swing towards that hope.