He had just ousted the regime of Gen Tito Okello Lutwa after a five-year liberation struggle that had also seen his National Resistance Army rebels fight Dr Apollo Milton Obote’s (1980-85).
On that day, President Museveni delivered his now memorable line to a very euphoric nation: “No one should think that what is happening today is a mere change of guard; it is a fundamental change in the politics of our country.”
He went on and promised to run a frugal and responsible government and told the country: “We want our people to be able to afford shoes. The honourable excellency who is going to the United Nations in executive jets, but has a population at home of 90 per cent walking barefoot, is nothing but a pathetic spectacle.
Yet this excellency may be busy trying to compete with [then US president Ronald] Reagan and [then USSR president Mikhail] Gorbachev to show them that he, too, is an excellency.”
On top of this speech which won him hearts both home and away, he even promised to rule for only four years.
Thirty years later, his name is inked in history books as one of the longest serving non-traditional leaders of the world in the eighth position.
The metamorphosis
After capturing power in 1986, the Legal Notice Number One was established as a basis of legality for the new NRA government as elections were prepared. It also vested legislative powers in the then National Resistance Council –NRC-[interim Parliament] and the President.
In 1989, the NRC was expanded from 98 appointed members to 278 elected representatives (68 of which were still nominated by the President) through the first national election since 1980 and transformed into the Constituent Assembly.
Several accounts have put it that President Museveni started to change colours when he asked for another five years to lay a foundation for the drafting and implementation of a new Constitution.
Former Supreme Court judge George Kanyeihamba, and who was minister of Justice at the time, writing in his weekly column in this newspaper two weeks ago said: “At the time, I believed the policy of extension was genuinely executed and our extension team, which I led as minister responsible, worked out a detailed programme which was to be adopted and implemented for the next five years in the realisation of the peoples’ expectations and wishes.”
The new Constitution was drawn and promulgated in September 1995 with a specific article 105(2) setting two terms for the incoming president. President Museveni sought an elective term which he indicated would be his last and won with 74 per cent.
Before that term would end, he launched a bid for another one. In 2000, while campaigning for the referendum to retain the Movement system, he then likened himself to the chameleon. At least 90 per cent of the 50 per cent voter turnout voted in favour of the Movement system in June that year.
The chameleon manifests
At the Wakiso rally, Museveni was quoted to have said the reason why leaders like UPC’s Milton Obote lost power twice through coup d’états was because they failed to read the situation properly, thereby failing to change accordingly.
A year later, he got a serious political challenger in his former personal physician during the Bush War, Dr Kizza Besigye, who two years earlier had authored a document criticising the NRM of derailing from the principles that in the first place had inspired them to go to the bush.
Amid Besigye’s mounting popularity, Museveni threw in a solemn political promise that this was the last term he was running and would retire thereafter; this is repeated 21 times in the NRM manifesto.
“I am once again offering myself to serve the people of Uganda because of my conviction. I am taking on the challenge of contesting for a last presidential term for the following reasons.”
He polled 69 per cent in the elections while Dr Besigye came second with 27 per cent, results which he challenged in the Supreme Court citing electoral malpractices. The court condemned the electoral process, but declined to overturn the results.
Until we solve our political differences; Uganda will always be caught between a stone and hard rock
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