As British contenders debate policies, Muntu and Besigye are preoccupied with denouncing Museveni

Aug 25, 2015

By sheer coincidence in their calendars, the main Ugandan and British opposition FDC and Labour parties respectively are currently conducting internal campaigns to elect a flag-bearer

By Sam Ayumu Akaki

By sheer coincidence in their calendars, the main Ugandan and British opposition FDC and Labour parties respectively are currently conducting internal campaigns to elect a flag-bearer and the results will be announced in Kampala and London on September 2 and 12, 2015 respectively.

That is where the coincidence ends and the two organisations begin taking separate approaches to electing who will lead them in the next general election. Let us elaborate.
 
Labour’s four leadership contenders are offering competing but clear policy choices, which they insist will make them win the next election.

Ms Liz Kendal, the Leicester West MP, is offering to reintroduce Tony Blair’s New Labour policies. Ms Yvette Cooper, the MP for Pontefract and Castleford, is promising to drop Labour’s opposition to the recent reduction in corporation tax to 20%; offer free Scandinavian-style universal childcare and make Britain the science and technology capital of Europe.

Andy Burnham, the MP for Leigh, is promising to ditch Labour’s “mansion tax” calling it an example of the “politics of envy”; restore the 50p top rate of income tax rate, back British membership of a reformed European Union, take a firmer line on immigration, end privatisation of the health service and renationalise the railway network.

Finally, Jeremy Corbyn, the MP for Islington North is promising a wholesale revival of Old Labour values — decent public services; growth not austerity; a national investment bank; fair taxes for all with the richest bearing the biggest burden, public ownership of railways and in the energy sector.

He is also promising decent homes for all through building more houses and controlling rents, fully-funded National Health Service; strong collective bargaining to stamp out workplace injustice, a foreign policy that prioritises justice and assistance, no more illegal wars and no replacing British nuclear weapons system.

In a major boost to Corbyn’s campaign, more than 40 leading economists, including a former adviser to the Bank of England, David Blanchflower, have written a joint letter in The Guardian, declaring that “his opposition to austerity is actually mainstream economics, even backed by the conservative IMF. He aims to boost growth and prosperity.”

We agree with these economists, having worked with Corbyn for 10 years when we were both members of the British delegation to the annual UN conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

In sharp contrast, in FDC, Gen Muntu may have promised in his nomination speech on July 2, “I will be focusing on marketing my leadership capabilities to the party members and the entire Ugandan population.” But astonishingly, he has been going around Uganda competing with Dr. Besigye in marketing a running denunciation of President Museveni. Consider these reports:

Budaka: Dr. Kizza Besigye “has told party delegates and supporters in Bukedi sub-region that President Museveni has so weakened that it only requires a slight push to throw him out of power,” reported one daily on August 22, 2015.

Budaka: Gen. Muntu said: “Museveni fears to lose power, and that is the reason he has continued to ring-fence his candidature to stand as sole candidate”, the same local daily reported on August 8, 2015.

Amuru: Col. Besigye “has said the youth who are joining President Museveni’s NRM party are blind and cannot notice that many senior members are jumping out of the Movement bus”, the same local daily said on August 8, 2015.

Kamuli: Gen. Mugisha Muntu “has said President Museveni opened the political space to excite the public and cajole Members of Parliament into amending the Constitution to remove presidential term limits”, the same daily said on August 4, 2015.

Masaka: Col Besigye said “I appreciate that people have repeatedly and overwhelmingly been voting us, but President Museveni has been rigging and court has twice concurred with me”, the same local daily on July 27, 2015.

Mbarara: Gen. Muntu “has said President Museveni does not fear individual presidential contestants but a united Opposition with good strategies”, the same local daily on  August 4, 2015.

Mbale: Dr. Kizza Besigye “has said he abandoned the NRM after realising it had turned into a similar dictatorship they had launched the bush war to remove”, same local daily of July 25, 2015.

Kabale: FDC president Muntu “has predicted that if President Museveni is announced winner in the 2016 election, the country might experience Somalia’s situation”, the same paper on July 23, 2015.

Bushenyi: Kizza Besigye said “some of you accuse me of failing to strengthen party structures thus making you decide to support Mbabazi. There is no difference between Mbabazi and President Museveni”, the same local daily on July 29, 2015.

Dr. Besigye is wrong on this because Mbabazi has issued an eight-point policy agenda justifying why he wants to replace president Museveni. The President has replied that Mbabazi is responsible for the NRM failures he now condemns.

With the FDC campaign coming to a close without Gen. Muntu or Col. Besigye mentioning a single policy difference between them, it is not unreasonable to conclude that they are encouraging FDC delegates to vote for whoever denounces President Museveni the most. That would be a terrible disservice to the cause of democracy in FDC and Uganda as a whole.

That is why, even at this late hour, we are asking the two contestants to emulate their British Labour Party counterparts and give us a clear policy choice. The press also has a responsibility to push Gen. Muntu and Col. Besigye to say why FDC delegates should vote for them.

The writer is a former FDC international envoy to the UK and European Union, also former parliamentary candidate in the UK, now executive director — Africa-European relations.


 

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