Museveni’s small fish

Jungle law for Mao

But Norbert Mao, the current President of the Democratic Party (DP), says the IPOD meeting at State House should be seen as an attempt at getting closer to constructive engagement amongst political parties.

Mao said that Museveni is the only summit member who had not attended an IPOD meeting. The summit is the highest body of the cooperation and it is composed of party leaders.

Mao also said that contrary to the views that the aim was to isolate FDC, the FDC was fully engaged in the cooperation and that FDC Secretary General Nandala Mafabi had attended a previous IPOD meeting in Jinja.

Commenting specifically on the value of the meeting, Mao said that the IPOD attempt was still timid. “What members must do is not to only to agree with Museveni on things they can agree on,” Mao said, “they must also get him to pay serious attention to areas where they cannot agree.”

He said the issues parties have to deal with under IPOD remain the same.

“But the most important issue now is to get Museveni to show political will that political competition is based on democratic norms and not jungle law as it is now,” Mao said.

However, Aggrey Awori says at the heart of Museveni’s campaign with the opposition is the desire to isolate FDC and further weaken the opposition.

Awori also said that with that meeting Museveni appeared to have killed two birds with one stone.

“Apart from dealing with the opposition directly,” Awori said, “Museveni dealt with donors. If they ask that dialogue takes place, he will just say that he has already been talking with the opposition.”

Awori’s views cement views held by many senior politicians about the opposition in the country.  Whatever the case, Museveni’s move has compounded internal divisions with parties. Observers also say it will be hard for the opposition to squeeze any sensible deal from Museveni if they are perceived as that weak.

Indeed, the most important issue in the opposition has been the continued detention of Besigye, who is the opposition’s de facto leader given that he has since 2001 emerged the second contender to Museveni in presidential elections.

However, those who attended the State House meeting say that when the issue of Besigye’s release came up for discussion, Museveni could not budge.

DP Secretary General, Mathias Nsubuga has told reporters that Museveni agreed on a number of key issues except on releasing Besigye.

Apparently, Museveni also said another FDC top honcho, Michael Kabaziguruka who is Nakawa MP and FDC deputy electoral commission chairman, also in jail over treason charges, tried but failed to kill him at his farm in Kisozi.

“I reminded him that the UPC leaders that he is now fraternizing with are the same people he fought and demonized in the 1980s and he [president] said that his soldiers told him that they have evidence pinning Besigye, Kabaziguruka and Sejusa,” Nsubuga reportedly told The Observer.

Nsubuga might have been laboring to show how he attempted to speak the truth to power but according to Bossa, it was clear Nsubuga was too mesmerised by Museveni’s presence to muster such courage.

Such views also help explain why the opposition is far off from uniting later on negotiating with Museveni as a block. Indeed, it was such views that partly led to the collapse of The Democratic Alliance (TDA), a coalition of Uganda’s biggest political parties and other groups opposed to Museveni, shortly before the 2016 elections. Other attempts like the InterParty Cooperation (IPC), formed to field a single presidential candidate in 2011 to run as the opposition flag-bearer also fell on a similar sword.

This is what continues to dash the hopes of many who see a well thought out alliance, as the solution to boasting the fortunes of the opposition in either negotiations with Museveni or efforts to put an end to his three decade reign.

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editor@independent.co.ug