KAMPALA – Former presidential candidate Dr. Kiiza Besigye on Thursday, February 20 released a fresh dossier, challenging Kyaddondo East Member of Parliament Robert Kyagulanyi Sentamu, also known as Bobi Wine, pointing out differences in their political strategies.
In the statement Besigye posted on Social Media, he stated that to oust President Yoweri Museveni through an election alone is almost unachievable.
He challenged Bobi Wine for encouraging Ugandans to register in large numbers and get national identity cards as voters not supporters in order to oust Museveni in the next elections. Besigye says leaders such as Museveni don’t organize elections to lose them.
“Military rulers use elections to consolidate their power especially through gaining international acceptability and to weaken the Opposition,” Besigye wrote.
According to him, such rulers have a number of techniques at their disposal to make sure that the election always comes out in their favour. He claims the techniques include manipulating the voters’ register, vote buying, excluding or compromising rivals, voter suppression, and election hacking.
“All these are facilitated by the control of all State institutions especially, security, financial and judicial,” Besigye wrote.
While on CNN recently, Bobi Wine announced he was seriously considering running against President Museveni in the next election and his main point was urging Ugandans to register to vote.
However, Besigye considered ousting Museveni through elections as a misjudgement. Besigye went ahead and stated his perception of politics and power.
“The first critical realisation must be that Junta elections, won’t liberate the power back to the people,” he said, adding: “Power must be wrestled from those who forcefully captured it, through a struggle.”
The struggle, which Besigye termed as the Second Liberation Struggle “must continue, whether there is an election or not.”
“An election can offer a great opportunity to advance or even triumph in the liberation struggle. However, a liberation struggle can be won at any time, when the conditions for achieving the change are in place,” he added.
“The purpose of a liberation struggle is for people to regain power and control of the State. An election, on the other hand, is meant for people to choose leaders (and the policies they present) and give them power to serve them. Competition for power, therefore, envisages a situation where people have the power and can chose whom to entrust it with.”
In the same release, Besigye charged at Bobi Wine’s political platform, People Power, casting doubt on whether there is an understanding of what power they are talking about.
“There seems to be widespread concurrence that people have no power and that we must regain our power,” Besigye noted.
“What some people don’t seem to delve into is the content of the power we don’t have and seek,” the dossier further states.
Besigye says this power is mainly to control over Uganda’s wealth, decision-making such as choosing leaders, policies, laws and regulation, implementation of decisions, and adjudication.
