Former Uganda army commander launches political party
Kampala, Uganda (PANA) – A former commander of Uganda’s army on Wednesday launched a political party, taking the national tally of registered political parties in the country to 33.
Maj. Gen. Mugisha Muntu, who commanded Uganda’s army for a decade until 2000, fought in the war that brought President Yoweri Museveni to power in 1986 but drifted away from his political and military mentor at the turn of the century.
Muntu disagreed with Museveni’s politics to the extent that he turned down an appointment as Minister of Defence after he was dropped as army commander. He first joined opposition politics in 2001 when political parties were still banned and Museveni presided over a one-party state.
Muntu, then a member of the regional parliament – East African Legislative Assembly - worked with the forces that opposed Museveni’s drive to remove the two-year term limit for the presidency.
Museveni defeated the protesters and had the Constitution amended in 2005, paving the way for him to run again in 2006, 2011 and 2016.
The amendment that removed the two term limit for the presidency also re-instituted multiparty politics, paving the way for Muntu and others to found the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC). FDC would get embroiled in a fight for supremacy between Muntu and four-time presidential candidate Kizza Besigye, who led it from 2005 to 2012.
When Besigye stepped down as FDC president, Muntu was elected the party’s president for five years, leading the country’s biggest opposition party from 2012 to the end of 2017. It was five years full of acrimony in the party, with players aligned with Besigye accused of sabotaging Muntu’s programmes.
In the lead up to the 2016 election, Muntu suffered humiliation when Besigye beat him to the party’s flag for presidential candidate. FDC’s constitution allows any party member to compete for the party’s flag in the national election.
After losing to Besigye, Muntu led the party’ presidential election campaign with Besigye as candidate, and the party and other players, including some observers, said they scored more votes than Museveni.
Museveni was controversially declared president and Besigye was put under house arrest and eventually got charged with treason after he declared himself winner of the election.
Players in FDC were, however, further divided by the election and its outcome. Besigye and his backers insisted that they would continue to fight to reclaim what they call their 2016 victory, and Besigye named what he calls a ‘People’s Government’.
Muntu refused to be part of Besigye’s ‘People’s Government’, arguing that since Museveni had successfully “carried out a coup”, FDC would be better advised to keep organizing and growing its support instead of engaging in protests which the ‘People’s Government’ was involved in.
It was amidst this argument that the 2017 internal party election arrived, and Muntu lost the presidency to Amuriat Oboi, Besigye’s close ally.
Muntu conceded defeat but said that he had been maligned within the party, announcing there and then that he would launch national consultations to determine his next action.
In September 2018, Muntu announced that he quit FDC and would work to found another party, a process that has been ongoing since.
At the unveiling of the party in Kampala on Wednesday, Muntu said his major preoccupation is to change the political culture in Uganda.
“There have always been good people in politics, but the problem is that at no point in Uganda’s 57 years since Independence did the good people constitute the majority in government or any political party.
That is what the Alliance for National Transformation (ANT) aims to change,” Muntu said. The membership of ANT is heavily drawn from FDC.
-0- PANA EM/AR 22May2019
