Kizza Besigye defied himself

By Mike Sebalu

I wish to congratulate candidate Yoweri Museveni of the NRM party who emerged the winner of the just concluded presidential elections.

In the same vein, my salutations are extended to the leaders and supporters of NRM for their overwhelming support that ensured victory for candidate Museveni.

At this point after a successful presidential elections that were held last Thursday results of which were announced on Saturday,February 20, 2016, declaring candidate Yoweri Museveni as the eventual winner. It is worthwhile to reflect on the various statements made by Dr. Kizza Besigye regarding the electoral process.

It should be remembered that Dr. Besigye clearly stated that he will never participate in any election organised by the Independent Electoral Commission. This meant that he did not have any confidence whatsoever in the institution that is mandated to manage the electoral process in this country.

Dr. Kizza Besigye is also on record as having said that he would never participate in any electoral process as long as Engineer Badrul Kiggundu is the chairman of the Electoral Commission. Such statement from someone aspiring for the highest office in the land was disturbing given that he went personal on official matters.

Furthermore, Dr. Kizza Besigye went ahead to say that the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections would not take place. Whatever his motivation was to make such a statement, I do not know!

More to that, Besigye also stated that he was going to run a campaign based on defiance as opposed to compliance. The idea of a defiance campaign must have not only shocked me but also surprised many law abiding citizens of Uganda.

However, the events that unfolded as campaigns drew near, reflected a totally different Besigye. As a champion of defiance, one would have expected Dr. Besigye to defy Kiggundu by not subordinating himself before him seeking nomination to run for the presidency.

However, we are all aware that on August 19, 2015, Besigye went to the Independent Electoral Commission and was duly nominated as a Presidential candidate after fulfilling all the requirements spelt out in the electoral law. Was that action defiance or compliance in the electoral law?

The presidential elections campaign that ensued after the nomination was equally overseen by the Independent Electoral Commission. In the actual sense, the candidates' campaign programmes had to be presented to the electoral commission which had to be notified and consulted for approval.

Dr. Besigye, like any other presidential candidate followed this requirement both in spirit and letter. His programmes too were cleared by the Independent Electoral Commission. Whether that was defiance or not, Dr. Besigye owes us an explanation.

Besigye defied himself when he went off his agreed programme mostly in Kampala when he tried to hold rallies on the streets other than programed and approved areas by the Independent Electoral Commission, which called for Police intervention and he had to be assisted to get to his way overboard in Kasangati.  

After three month of presidential campaigns, February 18 was a day for the polling. Indeed, Dr. Besigye went to his country home in Rukungiri and participated in the actual voting. His participation was an act of confirmation that actually the election took place contrary to his earlier stated views that election will never take place.

Again, this was an act of defiance against his own stated position. Dr. Besigye also in compliance to the electoral laws, he deployed a team of agents led by Wasswa Birigwa at the tallying centre in Namboole on Thursday night. However, on the second day, the agents did a "Besigye seek defiance" and took off from Namboole never to return.

 As we speak now, the election results a subject of public knowledge and information having been announced by the Independent Election Commission. Subsequently to that, Dr. Besigye is quoted by the media to have stated that he wanted to go to the Independent Electoral Commission to get the official results together with the declaration forms so that he can use them to pursue a legal process within the courts of law.

Interestingly, the same Besigye had earlier indicated that he will never go to the courts of law in Uganda to petition election results because he does not trust them, again, we see Besigye defying himself as per his known stated positions.

The above scenarios leave me in a confused state as to which Besigye to believe when to come to his campaign of defiance. Did he intend to mean defiance to his earlier stated position or compliance to the dictates of the law of the land? What he said and what he practically did are very contradictory.

It should be appreciated though his defiance campaign had no chance since the institutions of government mandated to keep law and order were in full swing and could not allow anyone to break the law just because you are a presidential candidate. At the end of the day, we saw Besigye who defied his own stated positions and ended up complying with the law governing presidential elections.

On serious self-reflection Dr. Kizza Besigye will ultimately find out that he was neither here or there interms of what he said and did in this campaign.