Key question is: how will political transition occur?

It is hard to know what the midnight hour will look, feel, sound, taste, or smell like. That is the moment when Uganda will cease having Mr Museveni as president of the republic. When and how that switch will happen is a looming big-deal issue.
The launch of a new party, like happened with the Alliance for National Transformation (ANT) on Wednesday, refocuses attention to the matter of political transition at the top in Uganda.

ANT, led by former army chief Mugisha Muntu, is joining the firmament of political forces that may have a say in how the transition unfolds.
It is noteworthy that ANT was launched two days after several political party leaders, including President Museveni, met for the second summit of the Inter-Party Organisation for Dialogue (IPOD) in Entebbe. As expected, FDC, Uganda’s largest Opposition party today, honoured its promise to stay away.

It has been clear for years that there are two broad strains in Uganda’s political Opposition against Mr Museveni and his ruling NRM party: a more muscular pound-for-pound approach, and a more deliberative and longer-term one.
The former, with its organising principle of defiance, seeks to actively disobey silly laws such as the Public Order Management Act and in the process uproot the entrenched NRM machine. The latter approach as well recognises that law to be silly and entirely in the service of NRM and Mr Museveni, but figures it can use a more methodical and negotiated approach to get rid of it and the system.

This difference of strategy, plus a big dose of duplicity amongst some of the leadership, led to the split within FDC and the birth of ANT.
The defiance camp (read FDC) never showed up at IPOD’s second summit, just like its members stayed away the first time late last year. It is conceivable that if ANT, with its current thinking, were represented in Parliament its leadership would have participated in both IPOD summits.
The tension at the heart of Uganda’s Opposition is an intriguing one. Thus far defiant street protests and creation of a people’s government by FDC’s Kizza Besigye, who says he won the 2016 elections, have not removed Mr Museveni.

But neither has the other approach favoured by DP, Jeema, UPC — parties that showed up at the Monday meeting — yielded any results. It is, therefore, unclear which side has a superior plan, unless one invokes the millions of votes Dr Besigye got in 2016 to argue that his side has the numbers.
In all this President Museveni does not seem bothered, outwardly at least. He looks at himself as a man firmly in charge of the State and his own destiny. I suspect he regards IPOD as a good public relations effort that portrays him as a wise and tolerant leader, the use of brutal force to suppress Opposition mobilisation work notwithstanding.
The status quo remains going into the 2021 general election. Then entry of ANT won’t change that dynamic — in the short term, no; in the longer term, probably.

This state of affairs nicely tees up People Power, the exuberant political grouping led by MP Robert Kyagulanyi (aka Bobi Wine), to play an oversized role in Opposition politics in the next couple of years.
Which way will Bobi Wine go? If the Opposition agreed on a joint presidential flag-bearer early enough, that would be an easy decision: support the chosen one. It is highly unlikely, however, that the Opposition will settle on a joint candidate. And so Bobi Wine will have to choose a side to throw his weight behind. The present dalliance he is engaged in involving the DP block, Besigye/FDC, and ANT is fleeting. He will have to show his hand.

It will be a coveted hand because it will come with bands of young people — the type, for example, who have lately been sweeping student leadership elections on campuses across the country.
A bold move, though, would be if People Power registered formally as a party to strike out on its own, fight its own fight in 2021 and possibly beyond. Whoever is advising Bobi Wine must be having a swell job, if he or she has the smarts.
For now, the issue remains how to get the moment of transition right, who will be on hand to aid the process. Political parties? The military? The voters? Other common wananchi? The professionals? The business class? The students? The farmers? A combination of all the above? Mr Museveni himself?

Bernard Tabaire is a media trainer and commentator on public affairs based in Kampala.
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Twitter:@btabaire