Besigye bounces back as FDC flag bearer, Muntu concedes

KAMPALA.
Founding FDC leader Dr Kizza Besgye late last night bounced back as party flag bearer for the 2016 election after beating incumbent president, Maj Gen Mugisha Muntu, with 718 votes to 289 votes.

One vote was invalid in results announced at exactly 12.17am by the party’s EC chief Dan Mugarura. 1,043 delegates had been lined up to vote. He will now present himself before The Democratic Alliance, a coalition platform, where he will bid to become the joint Opposition candidate.

“This marks the beginning of the real work, hard work, difficult work… I have every confidence that we can achieve what is ahead of us,” he told delegates in a speech which traced the struggle for democracy right from the NRA/M bush war days.

Photo by Dominic Bukenya

“I don’t believe that we should wait for a higher level of organisation to confront what we face today, a regime which has no respect for any form of democratic practice. We must use what we have today. Gen Muntu you will agree with me that when we went to that historic struggle there was hardly anything to use, there were hardly any people,” Dr Besigye said.

Speaking first, Gen Muntu conceded defeat straightaway and promised to back Dr Besigye but also said a party meeting will be convened in a week’s time to harmonise planning.

Maj Gen Mugisha Muntu campaigns. Photo by Abubaker Lubowa

“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s my pleasure to concede defeat to Dr Besigye because I respect you. We cannot give what we do not have,” Gen Muntu said as he told the delegates that FDC had won, and that it was never about either him or Dr Besigye but the process to achieve the party’s ultimate objective.

“This is not a loss for me. I’m a long distance runner. For every dark cloud there is a silver lining. I congratulate Besigye for winning. I respect the choice for the delegates. This country will get to understand me at some point. I believe in the God of Abraham, Jacob and Israel. The Lord I believe in tells me ;fear not for I’m with you’. I tell you that I have lost but FDC has won. I am a democrat....... I don’t fight for positions, I fight for principles and causes. I’m going to swing the party infrastructure behind him (Besigye). We will succeed,” he said.

Mugisha Muntu and wife. Photo by Abubaker Lubowa

“We have to harmonise positions Dr Besigye. My hope is that we are not going to have parallel paths within the party,” Gen Muntu said.

15 residual positions from the last delegates’ conference in June were also filled yesterday. Though 17 vacancies were left, two were filled by unopposed candidates.

Dr Besigye’s supporters engaged in wild dancing and blasting of plastic horns well into the night.

Tension
Earlier, the ghosts of the 2012 election that nearly brought FDC to its knees yesterday returned to haunt the party as Maj Gen Mugisha Muntu and Dr Kizza Besigye’s camps traded accusations of fraud, smuggling in delegates, “hooliganism” and swapping accreditation cards in a tight contest to determine a presidential flag bearer.