Museveni hanging on as EA federation wobbles

Aides to President Yoweri Museveni say he has put more wood into the fire, cooking his ambitions to run for office again in 2011 as an East African Federation Presidency is looking increasingly bleak.

Museveni “returned to his roots� launching a campaign to popularise NRM’s Bonna Bagagawale ( prosperity for all) in Luwero, where he waged his bush war. Luwero is politically symbolic.

When in 2005, the President who has been running Uganda for over 21 years, sought a third term, a feat that also required the abolition of presidential term limits from the Uganda constitution, he started off campaigning in Luwero.

The President is unlikely, as in the past, to announce his availability to run again. A source in his office who has been in the two of his re-election campaigns (2001/6), said on Monday “there is no doubt that we will seek a fourth term�.

In several interviews with his political staff, Inside Politics was told that the President, whose popularity has taken a nose dive from its highs in 1996, is in a process of gauging his support.

One of the problems facing the President (he turns 64 on September 14), is that an exit plan to a higher political office, as East Africa’s first federation President, is shaky with resistance from Dar-es- salaam. Tanzania wants East Africa to rethink the fast-tracking a political federation.

“If Arusha had worked out, then he would not have been interest in Uganda, he would plan to get someone to replace him here as he watches from above. That would have provided him a soft landing, but now it has been scuttled and he has to re-think,� said a source knowledgeable with the strategy in the Museveni camp.

That disappointment, sources confirm, has landed Ugandan Assistant Secretary General, Beatrice Kiraso, in trouble, for failing to lobby Tanzanian support for a political federation.