OPINION

By Ofwono Opondo

We shall continue putting microscopic eyes on the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) which last week took itself to the edge of the graveyard.

In a rather cavalier and dramatic fashion, elements of the opposition party’s leadership, instigated by its founding president Kizza Besigye, staged what many in legal circles consider a futile coup that purports to have toppled Patrick Oboi Amuriat, secretary-general Nathan Nandala Mafabi and treasurer Geoffrey Ekanya.

While Amuriat’s persona is not that inspiring, he was Besigye’s stooge but probably rebelled or just could not deliver what was expected of him.

 It is hard to see how the coup cabal will achieve legal recognition by the Electoral Commission which oversees political parties. It is even harder, seeing how the banks will accept them as bona fide signatories to the FDC accounts as they have publicly stated.

Looking at the trials of the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) and the Democratic Party (DP), it has not been possible for the outliers to take them over. In UPC, Peter Walubiri and Olara Otunnu as well as Nasser Ssebaggala (RIP), Erias Lukwago, Samuel Lubega Mukaku and Lulume Bayiga in DP simply fizzled out.

In the now-forgotten Conservative Party, John Ken Lukyamuzi has been on a lonely walk and perspired on his own when Jehoash Mayanja Nkangi (RIP) abandoned the party to him.

Although war in FDC has been running for the past three years, it is too early to determine which faction will prevail. One thing is true; FDC is now in a very unviable position. It will be a tall order climbing out of the abyss.

The Besigye faction refused to acknowledge that much of FDC’s troubles originated from its leaders’ greed for money, intrigue, ideology of defiance and poor political management styles rather than external forces.

They have conveniently chosen to conjure non-existent National Resistance Movement (NRM) double agents within their ranks that are determined to bring FDC down to avoid strict scrutiny.

A cavalier faction, now led by Lukwago, has been installed as the interim president for the next six months by a showy extraordinary delegate’s conference that doggedly convened at Plot 10, Katonga Road within Kampala city centre.

A leadership lineup under Lukwago is difficult for many analysts to see what he will truly achieve for FDC. This is going by his activism in the DP, which he fled from after causing so much political trouble. He has also spent 15 years as Kampala’s lord mayor, where he is almost a lame duck embroiled in never-ending conflicts.

Of course, they will make loud noises, particularly in Kampala where anything goes for persuasive content on gullible media platforms. Other sections of the media and fickle journalists putting challenging questions to FDC, Besigye and their political fan-boys like Lukwago and Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, are considered unwelcome.

Months back, this column said one of the likely scenarios was a plan for an alliance between the Besigye faction and the National Unity Platform (NUP), mainly as a condition dictated by foreign groups hostile to Uganda so they can get better funding. Within them, an alliance or co-ordination would bring their forces for disruption against the Government to build maximum and protracted pressure.

The game plan is twofold. First, to have President Yoweri Museveni’s Government capitulate or even collapse before the 2026 elections, a failed strategy they have pursued since their 2006 defeat. The second is a long-shot hope to build political momentum probably an election merger between what many still consider the Besigye food-hold areas to that of NUP to deny any prospective NRM presidential candidate an outright win in the 2026 election.

In a sense, a weakened but still ambitious Besigye, a dying FDC with a radicalised following and gullible partisan media, is the gift that is likely to define the political phase Uganda is entering.