ONE YEAR AFTER ELECTIONS: Where are the former presidential candidates?

A week in politics is a very long time. How about one year?
Yesterday, marked a year since the contested 2016 presidential elections, yet all but one of the seven presidential candidates who contested in the February 18, 2016, presidential elections against incumbent Yoweri Museveni have disappeared from the politics of the day.
Their voices and influence on how the country is managed since the end of the polls, if any, is hard to cite.
The six candidates – Amama Mbabazi, Abed Bwanika, Prof Venansius Baryamureeba, Maureen Kyalya, Benon Biraaro and Joseph Mabirizi – who in total garnered less than four per cent of the more than 10 million votes cast, have since retreated to their private lives and businesses.
Have Uganda’s problems they eloquently diagnosed on the campaign trail and in their respective manifestos gone away? Will these problems and issues matter again towards 2021?

Besigye-Museveni factor
Once again, the political landscape is left to President Museveni, firmly entrenched in power on one hand and Dr Kizza Besigye who at times is the lonely voice in a seemingly cracking Opposition on the other.
Understandably, the two principals garnered the highest number of votes in the 2016 general election according to results announced by the Electoral Commission. Mr Museveni was declared winner with about 60 per cent of the vote against Dr Besigye’s 35 per cent.
While Dr Besigye still attracts crowds and sways public opinion, President Museveni with the aid of the State machinery and other propaganda tools, has ensured that it increasingly becomes clear that the Opposition leader doesn’t have the power.
For an incumbent who had been in power for 30 years at the time and had State resources at his disposal, President Museveni at times appeared desperate campaigning across districts in a day, sometimes late in the night trying to convince Ugandans to give him another term.
However, since firmly securing a fifth elective term, the incumbent increasingly seems unbothered about what Ugandans, and particularly his opponents, think about him.
During the NRA/M day celebrations to mark his 31 years in power recently, President Museveni rebuked those promoting the idea of “servant leadership” in which those who hold office are servants of the population that elects and pays them.
“I am not an employee. I hear some people saying that I am their servant; I am not a servant of anybody. I am a freedom fighter; that is why I do what I do. I don’t do it because I am your servant; I am not your servant. I am just a freedom fighter; I am fighting for myself, for my belief; that’s how I come in. If anybody thinks you gave me a job, he is deceiving himself. I am just a freedom fighter whom you thought could help you also,” he said.
Dr Besigye, a consistent advocate of servant leadership through his public speeches, pokes holes in President Museveni’s freedom fighter credentials.
“Freedom fighters once they get in government, of necessity they become servants. Clearly what we have is someone who was not a freedom fighter in the first place and therefore cannot be a servant. Servant leadership is a philosophy and it is a set of practices were you must put the needs of others first and that is why a freedom fighter must become a servant,” Dr Besigye says.
With Dr Besigye’s defiance spirit enduring and clearly unwavering and President Museveni visibly bent on bringing the remaining Opposition to its knees or his fold, the two principals will continue to define Uganda’s political landscape, at least in the foreseeable future.

Manufactured Opposition
A lot of water has gone under the bridge since former prime minister Amama Mbabazi threatened to be the third force in the more than 15 year contest, led on one side by Mr Museveni and Dr Besigye on the other.
At one point during his “consultations” shortly before the campaigns kicked off, Mr Mbabazi looked like the man to beat. This, however, faded gradually and by the time the final results were out, it was clear that the man once thought to be Mr Museveni’s anointed successor—during his time in government, had been in a race above his weight.
A year later, the 68-year-old who would frequently use social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook to speak to Ugandans, now rarely uses the tools to communicate.
At the time of writing this story, for example, his last tweet had been on January 30. It was about a CNN story on the executive order by US president Donald Trump banning nationals from some countries while the former “Super Minister” last commented on a Ugandan issue via Twitter on January 22 when he was consoling the Uganda Cranes team which had been ejected out of the Africa Cup of Nations.
Unpredictability and being or appearing to be sophisticated are said to be some of Mr Mbabazi’s chosen political tools. Could he be up to something big or was the election the end of his political career?
Daily Monitor recently reported that Mr Mbabazi’s family members were in talks with President Museveni in what is believed to be an attempt to reconcile the former “close” allies.
Mr Mbabazi’s eldest daughter, Ms Rachel Ciconco who confirmed to have met Mr Museveni “on several occasions” is said to be acting as the go-between. Neither President Museveni nor Mr Mbabazi have officially confirmed or denied these attempts.
Instead, Mr Mbabazi has wondered why people would wonder why he is talking to President Museveni.
“The way people talk is as if there is something wrong with meeting President Museveni; there is absolutely nothing wrong with President Museveni. I will meet him any time. I have no problem with it,” Mr Mbabazi said recently while addressing residents of Namukono village, Buikwe District.
Three-time presidential candidate Abed Bwanika seems to have returned to his routine like he did in the two general elections preceding the 2016 poll.
The veterinarian, politician and pastor leads the less known People’s Development Party (PDP). He only becomes politically active towards general elections. His political party is not any different. Mr Bwanika mostly engages in promoting agriculture and his pastoral and other business operations. He occasionally talks politics.
To his credit, Prof Venansius Baryamureeba has remained active, albeit in an observation role on the goings on in the country. He sometimes publishes his views on his social media pages and other platforms. The former Makerere University vice chancellor is said to have returned to the academia, including running a university he helped to found after he left Makerere University.
After the elections, Ms Maureen Kyalya openly declared she would solicit a job from President Museveni. But the only female candidate in the 2016 race is reported to have left the country for the United Kingdom where she had lived and worked before.
Ms Kyalya, who at one time engaged in nasty Facebook exchanges with different people, has largely kept a low profile since. Often, she engages in online debates about Busoga sub-region and the kingdom leadership. She also posts about her “spiritual restoration”, education and her family.
Maj Gen Benon Biraaro ran a campaign with promises to provide a clear political direction for the country by responding to the aspirations of the majority of Ugandans.
He promised, among other things, to make reforms in the health and education sector by, for example, spearheading an overhaul of the primary and secondary education system to produce skilled workforce, if elected.
The concerns about the education and health sectors remain the same, perhaps worse, but Gen Biraaro has been notably silent. Again, his voice has not been heard in proposing and calling for reforms in the sports sector which was one of the highlights of his manifesto.
He was a little known local businessman when he declared his 2016 presidential bid, but Joseph Mabirizi’s unconventional answers and etiquette at the first and second presidential debates made him a household name, arguably for the wrong reasons.
Apart from sometimes appearing on radio and television programmes, Mabirizi, who contested for the top job on the promise to fight increased corruption, land grabbing, failed service delivery and poor policies, has fizzled out of the public circulation. The problems he set out to fight still bedevil the country.
Citing the 1979 Moshi Conference which debated the future leadership of Uganda after the fall of president Idi Amin as an example, Dr Besigye last year warned about “briefcase organisations” which tend to turn up whenever there is an opportunity to have a political discussion in the country”. Dr Besigye was rejecting dialogue proposed by religious leaders and elders.

Elections as a project
Towards elections, different actors come up with initiatives apparently to support the electoral process. Some of the initiatives are genuinely about what they propose while others target mainly donor funds in the guise of supporting the democratisation process in the country.
The 2016 general election was no different; individuals and groups came up with enterprises like the presidential debate organised by The Elders Forum Uganda and Inter–Religious Council of Uganda and political outfits whose existence ended with the announcement of election results or even much earlier.
But it was The Democratic Alliance (TDA), a loose coalition formed by Opposition political parties and groups backed by civil society organisations to field a joint presidential candidate that gripped the country most.
Organisations that signed up on TDA included Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), Conservative Party (CP), Democratic Party (DP), Peoples Progressive Party (PPP), Uganda Federal Alliance (UFA), Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC), Go-Forward, Party of National Unity (PNU) and the Justice Forum (JEEMA).
TDA “died” after a failure by members to agree on a joint presidential candidate, but there were declared hopes they would continue to work together.
Were most of the TDA members concerned about change like they said, or was it another project to appease donors?
A year since the elections, however, it is unimaginable to constitute the TDA project with the same membership.
Former DP chairman Muhammad Baswari Kezaala, who signed on to the TDA protocol on behalf of DP, has since taken a job from President Museveni as an ambassador.
Other DP members are also said to be working closely with the incumbent. A team of DP members led by Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago who fought to be part of the TDA summit continue to stay away from the Norbert Mao led DP.
Former vice president Gilbert Bukenya of PNU has since been “rehabilitated” and is quietly back in NRM.
Uganda Federal Alliance president Beti Kamya is now the minister for Kampala and has promised to vigorously campaign for Mr Museveni so that he wins more than 80 per cent of the vote in Kampala in 2021. President Museveni is barred by the Constitution from standing in 2021 on account of age.
Both JEEMA and CP had one representative in the 9th Parliament and having lost them, the parties seem to have been washed off the face of Uganda’s politics.
Two UPC factions, one led by Jimmy Akena and the other then led by Olara Otunnu, fought over who should represent UPC in TDA. At one point, Mr Akena led a team of UPC youth to the TDA headquarters in Naguru, Kampala, where they mounted a siege demanding the UPC flag.
Mr Akena has since led his UPC faction into a “partnership” with President Museveni and NRM.
Some of Mr Akena’s “allies” now hold top jobs in President Museveni’s government, including his wife Betty Amongi, the Oyam South MP, who is also Lands minister.
Faced with the wrath of the State, fighting for legitimacy and without resources, the other UPC faction, now led by Mr Joseph Bbosa, is seemingly dead.
Having lost the active backing of their founding president Jaberi Bidandi Ssali who retired from active politics, PPP is likely to end up on the list of the many “briefcase” outfits listed on the Electoral Commission website.
The “eminent people”, part of the TDA summit, have also since retreated to their personal lives and business. FDC with many glaring challenges seems the only member of TDA that still functions as a unit.
Just one year after the 2016 presidential vote, it looks like many of Mr Museveni’s “opponents” are waiting for pre-2021 to feed on the carcass that is the Ugandan problem.

What they say

Joseph Mabirizi, former presidential candidate:
“After elections, the politicians hang on because they take leadership to be an employment. I have been doing my business. I continue to advise when I can, talk on radio sometimes and I also write. This government, however, cannot listen. There is nothing that can change and nothing has changed. They tried to extract something from my manifesto but you cannot do much when you are not the initiator. It is my manifesto that talks about doing away with the law on being idle and disorderly and restoring parastatals.”

Gen Benon Biraaro, former presidential candidate:
“If you tell the electorate what you want to do and they don’t buy it, I think it is wise to let their choice to implement his manifesto. One year later, I think it is wise to let the population rest. They have gone through a year and half of politicking before. They need at least three years of productivity before we go through the ritual again. This doesn’t mean those who won are doing anything. My campaign was about how we jump start the economy and it is not doing any better. I am coming back in 2021.”

Gen Mugisha Muntu, FDC president: “It is the nature of our politics or the political culture in this country? Majority of the people who go into politics go into it not because it is a calling but do it because they seek positions. Normally, political activity tends to be heightened during elections and after that those who are in positions and those who don’t make it tend to fall back and get involved in other things. When politics is a calling, it doesn’t matter whether one has gone through or not, they remain focused on doing things that will benefit the people.”