Will Muntu forever be in Besigye’s shadow?

Ms Joyce Nabbosa Ssebugwawo, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) deputy president for Buganda, endured moments of discomfort as Dr Kizza Besigye delivered his acceptance speech after winning the party’s presidential flag bearer race at Namboole.

“She is the rock on which the campaign rested,” Besigye said of Ssebugwawo, who was seated next to Gen Mugisha Muntu’s wife, Julia Muntu, one person away from Muntu himself.
Seemingly unsure of how to react to the recognition by Besigye, Ssebugwawo looked the other way, wearing a facial expression which is difficult to read. Julia Muntu, her immediate neighbour, did not turn to look at her either, negating the human impulse to focus on the object of attention at any moment. It was the stuff the movies are made of.
We pick on Ssebugwawo’s example to demonstrate how the delegates were torn between old loyalties and how hard a decision they had to make.

Ssebugwawo chose to support and took the lead in Besigye’s campaign, fully aware that after the flag bearer contest, she would have to attend weekly meetings chaired by Muntu and closely work with him to run the party.
She, like many of the other delegates, had been in contact with the two men at least since the founding of the party over a decade ago. Some other party leaders are in a similar position as Ssebugwawo, regardless of which candidate they supported.

Many who were at Namboole were surprised by the margin of Besigye’s victory – 71 per cent – especially given the tension that engulfed the place and the feeling that the election was too close to call.
It was Muntu’s best performance against Besigye’ of all the three contests they have had, but it still left some wondering why the current party president failed to do better and probably put one past his nemesis.
Why does the party president keep in the shadow of his predecessor? Were there lessons for him to pick up from his latest defeat for future use?

Besigye tips
Besigye was blowing his trumpet one last time so that the delegates would choose him over Muntu. By so doing, however, he seemed to make an important point about which Muntu may need to reflect.
He said that the most important point in selecting a candidate for an election is popular support. Besigye said that the delegates were there to pick a candidate “who will have the numbers in a few months to win” the election.
If they picked him, he said, “the support that we will need to win is already there. It is not imagined; it is not speculative”.

Muntu argued, not quite to the satisfaction of Besigye and some delegates we talked to, that if he were named FDC flag bearer, Besigye’s support would automatically transfer to him. Besigye had challenged him earlier on why during the two years he was party president, he made no attempt to pupolarise himself and the party.
Muntu’s response, as usual, was that the party was more important than individuals and that he had concentrated on building the institution so that whoever led it would be bolstered by its strength in the same measure as he would be checked by it.
“The problem in this country is that whoever has got to the top got corrupted by power,” Muntu said. He, of course, has a point.

His interpretation of the problem and prescription of solution, however, unfortunately did not seem to ring true with a number of the delegates we talked to. Many Ugandans do not seem ready to transit from charismatic leaders in favour of institutions.
“It is very difficult for me to convince my people to vote Muntu ahead of Besigye,” one delegate told us, “many of the people almost do not know Muntu.”
The delegate said that the delegates view Besigye as the man who can win the election despite his past failures. Another point the delegate singled out was that as someone who was looking to run for a position next year, it was in his interest to vote a candidate who can rally support for him.

“Just being associated with Besigye in an election will win a good number of votes,” the delegate said. He would not say the same of Muntu.
One delegate who campaigned for Muntu, while reflecting on why he feared his candidate would lose again, said that Besigye had “blackmailed the delegates” with the crowds he had pulled during the campaigns and that some of the delegates feared a backlash from the voters if they chose Muntu as the flag bearer.
Did this influence the decisions of people like Ssebugwawo? She intends to keep on as Mayor of Rubaga Division and she knows that the support she rode on to win the division was galvanised around the cabal of Besigye and Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago, and a similar alignment is expected for the coming election. Choosing Muntu would probably upset the odds and alliances.

And talking of alliances, it matters to some people that Muntu seems less interested in courting institutions – be they religious or cultural – that other players see as essential power brokers and use every opportunity to court.
In this regard, a delegate told this reporter, Muntu has in the recent past missed Kabaka Mutebi’s 60th birthday celebrations and the funeral service of the late Mufti of the Kibuli-based Muslim function, Zubair Kayongo. The delegate also pointed out that Muntu was not so visible in the drive to fundraise for the rebuilding of the Namugongo Martyrs Shrine.
“Ugandans are attached to things like these and Besigye knows that better than Muntu,” the delegate said.

Muntu’s party building work overhyped?
With Besigye decidedly superior to Muntu in terms of individual popularity, Muntu would probably have done better, had the much-hyped party building work been clearly visible.
In canvassing for votes, Besigye’s team attempted to poke holes into this claim, wondering how much party building the party leader had engaged in. The ruling party, according to opinion poll results released by the Africa-wide polling firm Afrobarometer recently, enjoys 65 per cent support, with FDC and other opposition parties sharing 15 per cent. The other 20 per cent remains undecided.
Muntu said when he had just taken over FDC that he would target NRM strongholds and the “fence-sitters” to recruit them into FDC.

At the delegates conference at Namboole last Wednesday, an overwhelming number of delegates were old, with many of them having attended almost all the party’s delegates conferences since its founding.
A Besigye supporter had questions to raise about this fact, regarding why, if it is true that FDC had grown tremendously under Muntu, an overwhelming majority of delegates had remained unchanged in the last grassroots elections.

“This shows that the party’s membership has not increased in any significant way, and that we have not recruited new people who can take up leadership roles,” the delegate said.
He referred to Muntu’s claim that he has done tremendously well at party building as “a well-orchestrated and repeatedly told lie”.

What should Muntu do differently?
If it is true that most delegates saw Muntu’s claim to building the party as not quite accurate, it is little wonder that they chose to keep with Besigye, the leader who can at least compensate for the lack of organisational capabilities with charisma.
Fortunately for Muntu, he says that he lives on hope. “I told you that if I don’t get the flag I won’t die,” he said in his concession speech, “I won’t get sick. I know my purpose; by the grace of God, it will be fulfilled.”

When Muntu first contested against Besigye in 2009, he polled 53 votes which increased to 112 in 2010 and then 278 this time. Besigye cited this fact to impress it on Muntu and the other delegates that “political work builds and political capital accumulates”.
And for Muntu’s purpose to be fulfilled and emerge from Besigye’s shadow, perhaps, he will have to do much more of what he has been doing and engage more with Ugandans by being more visible. That way, people like Ssebugwawo will be spared awkward moments like the one she endured last Wednesday.

emukiibi@ug.nationmedia.com