Kiraso’s journey from retirement to running Tumukunde’s campaign

Ms Beatrice Kiraso Amooti addresses supporters at the “Renewed Uganda” platform last month. PHOTOS | DAVID LUBOWA

Nine years after quitting elective politics and about two years into early retirement from employment, Ms Beatrice Kiraso Amooti recently returned to the political arena to help presidential hopeful, Gen Henry Tumukunde, drive Uganda to what they call a “Renewed Uganda” with the slogan “It is Possible.”
“I had thought I would put politics on the side for a while because it had come to a point where sometimes you feel helpless, especially when you can’t make any difference. When [it felt like] your voice is not there,” Ms Kiraso tells Sunday Monitor.
Even when she says “I am only a team player because it is still a loose team, we don’t have titles,” highly placed sources at the Kololo-based camp defined her as “the master planner”.
In her 12-minute speech as a keynote speaker during the unveiling of Gen Tumukunde’s Renewed Uganda last month, Ms Kiraso’s message echoed that of the former spy chief in early March when he announced he would take on his former boss and Bush War comrade, President Museveni, in the 2021 general election.

Gen Henry Tumukunde arrives for the launch of his “Renewed Uganda” platform in Kampala on August 12. 


Tumukunde and Kiraso hinted on how it had been strategic for the Renewed Uganda platform to do things the way they did and particularly focused their message on the “ordinary Ugandan”, no wonder the first speakers at the event were two men, one a boda boda rider and another a trader from Kisenyi in Kampala.

Who is Kiraso
The storylines that define Ms Kiraso run back to Kiburara village, Hakibale Sub-county in Kabarole District.
Ms Kiraso is the first of 10 children born to the late Edison Amooti Rusoke Kiraso. She started school at Kiburara Primary School before joining Nyakasura School for her O-Level and Kyebambe Girls’ School for A-Level.
In 1981, while Tumukunde and his Bush War comrades were traversing the jungles to capture power, Kiraso joined Makerere University where she graduated with a Bachelors of Arts in Economics and Social Administration in 1984.
Passionate about community transformation and growth, Ms Kiraso went back to her home district where she undertook community service, which would later ease her way to the legislative assembly in 1996.
She later joined the prestigious JF Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in the United States of America in 2004.

Joins politics
“My first political office was in 1996 when I ran unopposed for Member of Parliament (MP) for Kabarole District because I had already been working with communities and helping to empower people,” Ms Kiraso says.
She was Woman MP for two terms, serving in the 6th and 7th Parliaments.
“During that time I was the chair of the Finance Committee, actually first chair of the Budget Committee because I am the one who initiated the Budget Act through moving a private member’s Bill,” Ms Kiraso says.
It was at this point that she served with Gen Tumukunde who was then an Army MP, a period that strengthened the comradeship. Ms Kiraso had first met Gen Tumukunde in 1993 and she held him in high regard because she found him “very focused and deep.”
In 2005, Ms Kiraso took a decision not to contest again.

Ascends to EAC
She was in April 2006, however, appointed deputy secretary general in charge of fast-tracking the political federation of the East African Community (EAC), a position she held until 2012.
“I finished with the EAC and I became a director with the UN Economic Commission for Africa and I was in charge of the Southern African sub-region two years ago and took an early retirement,” Ms Kiraso says.
It is for this reason that she has been out of the limelight and away from elective politics, a decision she had premised on the lack of transparency in politics.
“Like they say, politics is a dirty game. When I joined politics, after two terms I really started seeing that it’s not something I want to make a career of,” she says.

Why the U-turn?
Ms Kiraso says her return to politics was due to Gen Tumukunde’s persuasion that Uganda needed rejuvenation and this would take people like her to achieve.
“When we spoke with General [Tumukunde], I also got convinced that our generation has done a disservice to this country. By our generation I mean my age group. We were in Parliament [and] were in positions of leadership and we were following blindly, or some people were already in the Opposition but not making impact,” Kiraso says.
“So I thought, if we brought in this new independent-thinking platform which has no party positions that are so rigid, maybe we could package and sell something different to Ugandans, then Uganda can be better.”
Kiraso believes her towering experience in politics and specifically on policy matters will be key as Renewed Uganda prepares Gen Tumukunde for presidency.
“I bring experience in the way things should be done. I am a public policy expert. We are not short of policies in Uganda but then they are abused when it comes to implementation,” Ms Kiraso says.

Tough terrain ahead
Kiraso is aware of the hurdles ahead.
“The challenges are mainly the inferences from government. From the day our candidate expressed interest to become a presidential candidate, took a letter to EC [Electoral Commission] and informed the police, the following week they were here arresting him,” Ms Kiraso says.
“So we keep here not knowing whether they will come back to arrest us, whether our people are safe,” she says, adding that the newly appointed regional coordinators are already operating in a tough environment.
“Our people are working and some of them call and say the DISO [District Internal Security Officer] is on my neck, but we will have to deal with all that. We have to unveil the truth to Ugandans so that they are aware of it,” Ms Kiraso says.
And like their campaign slogan, Kiraso strongly believes “it is possible”.