Museveni thanks voters
Mar 16, 2006
DANCING and dining stirred up President Yoweri Museveni’s usually quiet ranch in Kisozi, Mpigi district on Wednesday as the president-elect thanked his voters for electing him for the third term into power.
By Cyprian Musoke
DANCING and dining stirred up President Yoweri Museveni’s usually quiet ranch in Kisozi, Mpigi district on Wednesday as the president-elect thanked his voters for electing him for the third term into power.
A beaming Museveni, ensconced between NRM party bigwigs vice-president Gilbert Bukenya, Movement vice-chairman Moses Kigongo, Speaker Edward Ssekandi and his deputy Rebecca Kadaga kept flashing the NRM thumbs-up sign as hundreds of guests pulled at large pieces of meat and swigged bottles of soda.
Museveni thanked the voters and all the Movement leaders. He discouraged infighting among Movement leaders, saying no individual was more important than the party.
“The Movement is what chased away the killers, chased away UPC, (Idi) Amin and barred them from coming back. Not one person, be it (area MPs) Kalule Ssengo, Najjemba Muyinda, Hanifa Kawooya, Theodore Ssekikubo, Herman Ssentongo, or any other Movement leader in this area.
“They are not the ones who chased away the killers individually, but the Movement working together,†he said.
He said if it were not for team work, none of them would be talking.
He said the problem had been some leaders considering themselves being more important than the establishment.
“Even me who has led the Movement for the last 36 years, I am not the one who brought peace alone. I worked with people and everybody was important. The cook, the guide, the one who fired the machinegun and one who kept weapons,†he said.
He advised the Movementists against despising one another, and dispelled talk that some Movementists were ‘Conc’ (concentrated) and others ‘dilute’.
“That is not the tradition of the Movement. It is to appreciate the contribution of everybody. Even if one makes mistakes, we criticise in order to change them,†he said.
Giving the example of FDC president and his main contender in the just concluded elections, Col. Kizza Besigye, Museveni said it is only when a member refuses to ‘reform’ that they are dropped.
“We gave Besigye a chance to reform. He was supposed to face the Court martial, and people in Rukungiri (Besigye’s home district) appealed to me and I begged the court to forgive him. In spite of that, he became worse and worse. Now we have started treating him as somebody on the other side,†he explained.
He said in future, the Movement will not use electoral colleges in the primaries, but let all card- holding members vote in order to avoid the problem of independents that had caused acrimony.
“We shall let all card- holding members vote in the primaries, then all these arguments will stop because if you lose in primaries when all Movementists in that area have voted, you will not think of running as an independent,†he said.
Present was Movement fourth vice-chairman Moses Ali, water minister Kahinda Otafiire, NRM deputy secretary general Dorothy Hyuha, ministers and Movement MPs.
Kigongo urged all those who lost the elections not to desert the Movement but help in the job of building an even stronger party to ensure that it retains power in 2011.
Museveni urged his supporters who had flocked in from Gomba, Maddu, Kabulasoke, Mawogola and Ssembabule to take up modern farming methods to get out of poverty.
DANCING and dining stirred up President Yoweri Museveni’s usually quiet ranch in Kisozi, Mpigi district on Wednesday as the president-elect thanked his voters for electing him for the third term into power.
A beaming Museveni, ensconced between NRM party bigwigs vice-president Gilbert Bukenya, Movement vice-chairman Moses Kigongo, Speaker Edward Ssekandi and his deputy Rebecca Kadaga kept flashing the NRM thumbs-up sign as hundreds of guests pulled at large pieces of meat and swigged bottles of soda.
Museveni thanked the voters and all the Movement leaders. He discouraged infighting among Movement leaders, saying no individual was more important than the party.
“The Movement is what chased away the killers, chased away UPC, (Idi) Amin and barred them from coming back. Not one person, be it (area MPs) Kalule Ssengo, Najjemba Muyinda, Hanifa Kawooya, Theodore Ssekikubo, Herman Ssentongo, or any other Movement leader in this area.
“They are not the ones who chased away the killers individually, but the Movement working together,†he said.
He said if it were not for team work, none of them would be talking.
He said the problem had been some leaders considering themselves being more important than the establishment.
“Even me who has led the Movement for the last 36 years, I am not the one who brought peace alone. I worked with people and everybody was important. The cook, the guide, the one who fired the machinegun and one who kept weapons,†he said.
He advised the Movementists against despising one another, and dispelled talk that some Movementists were ‘Conc’ (concentrated) and others ‘dilute’.
“That is not the tradition of the Movement. It is to appreciate the contribution of everybody. Even if one makes mistakes, we criticise in order to change them,†he said.
Giving the example of FDC president and his main contender in the just concluded elections, Col. Kizza Besigye, Museveni said it is only when a member refuses to ‘reform’ that they are dropped.
“We gave Besigye a chance to reform. He was supposed to face the Court martial, and people in Rukungiri (Besigye’s home district) appealed to me and I begged the court to forgive him. In spite of that, he became worse and worse. Now we have started treating him as somebody on the other side,†he explained.
He said in future, the Movement will not use electoral colleges in the primaries, but let all card- holding members vote in order to avoid the problem of independents that had caused acrimony.
“We shall let all card- holding members vote in the primaries, then all these arguments will stop because if you lose in primaries when all Movementists in that area have voted, you will not think of running as an independent,†he said.
Present was Movement fourth vice-chairman Moses Ali, water minister Kahinda Otafiire, NRM deputy secretary general Dorothy Hyuha, ministers and Movement MPs.
Kigongo urged all those who lost the elections not to desert the Movement but help in the job of building an even stronger party to ensure that it retains power in 2011.
Museveni urged his supporters who had flocked in from Gomba, Maddu, Kabulasoke, Mawogola and Ssembabule to take up modern farming methods to get out of poverty.