Don’t wait for 2016 to remove NRM - Besigye

MBARARA.

Former Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party president Kizza Besigye and his successor Maj Gen Mugisha Muntu have rallied Ugandans to immediately start working for the removal of President Museveni from power rather than simply waiting for 2016 elections.
Dr Besigye and Gen Muntu, both retired army officers who fought with Mr Museveni in the 1981-86 guerrilla war, said if the situation prevailing today remains, the 2016 elections will be useless because they will be manipulated in favour of the President.

Dr Besigye has contested thrice against President Museveni and lost.
Addressing a rally at Booma Grounds in Mbarara Town on Friday, Dr Besigye quoted renegade Gen David Sejusa’s revelation that the former FDC president had won the 2006 presidential elections with 69 per cent, while Museveni had managed less than 30 per cent but the results were manipulated to make Mr Museveni the winner.

The Electoral Commission announced 37 per cent for Dr Besigye and 59 per cent for Mr Museveni in the 2006 presidential election results.
On December 17, 2013, Gen Sejusa, the former Coordinator of Intelligence Services, was quoted in the local and foreign press as saying: “We organised another electoral commission of intelligence at Basiima House and it is our results that we pushed through to the (official) electoral commission. How can you win in that type of situation?”
The Media Centre executive director, Mr Ofwono Opondo, and the EC spokesman, Mr Jotham Taremwa, promptly dismissed the claim.
Gen Sejusa fell out with Mr Museveni in April last year and lives in exile in the UK.

“What will stop them from giving you 10 per cent after you have got 70 per cent? Will you go to the judges who do what they want?” charged Dr Besigye, who has repeatedly called for dissolution of the current electoral commission headed by Mr Badru Kiggundu, which he accuses of being partisan.

Not against elections
He said he is not opposed to participating in the elections but asked the audience whether they would want to go into the 2016 election when they know it will be stolen.
“We have to start now. We have to get into organisations and get coordinated. Do not fear,” Dr Besigye told the crowd.
He continued: “We shall not retreat, not even once. We shall continue the struggle.”

He said he does not fear going to prison again because he is doing no wrong and that those who get politically persecuted and are imprisoned should not fear “the world has come to an end”.
Gen Muntu said 70 per cent of Ugandans want change but they have failed to overcome fear that stands in their way to push for it. He said others are not focused.

He urged Ugandans to trust FDC leaders as people who are capable of delivering the desired regime change
The FDC Women League Chairperson Ingrid Turinawe said they were boycotting the Women’s Day celebrations because 16 mothers continue to die in labour everyday yet the government spends millions of shillings on such occasions instead of spending it on providing services to save mothers’ lives.