Was Beti Kamya always spying on the Opposition?

It is hard to tell with mathematical accuracy whether Lukwago’s information about Kamya’s dealings with Museveni or the National Resistance Movement power machine at that time was accurate.

Kamya continued to maintain an anti-Museveni posture, and gave former vice president Prof Gilbert Bukenya a tongue-lashing when, as attempts to choose who between Dr Kizza Besigye and former prime minister Amama Mbabazi would carry the Opposition’s flag into the February 2016 election floundered, Bukenya returned to Museveni’s fold.

Did Kamya finally go back home?
Dubbed “unprincipled” by Kamya for crisscrossing the political divide, Bukenya eventually suffered what appeared a fatal political blow when he lost his Busiro North Constituency to a hitherto little known challenger.

Kamya would later suffer defeat herself at the hands of Moses Kasibante, who successfully defended his Rubaga North seat which Kamya had earlier represented before launching an unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 2011.
In the bitterly fought Rubaga North race, Kasibante had been backed by Lukwago, who would himself successfully defend his Lord Mayor seat in the same round of elections. During the campaigns, Kasibante and his campaigners told voters that Kamya covertly worked for Museveni, a charge which the 60-year-old mother of six strongly denied.

Kamya’s conduct after the elections only served to solidify the claims by many Opposition politicians that she always worked with Museveni. Kamya had publicly backed Mbabazi’s presidential bid, but she kept away from Mbabazi’s post-election protests about the conduct of the election that resulted in an unsuccessful petition challenging the election.
Many Opposition politicians claimed that Besigye, and not Museveni, had won the election, to which Kamya reacted by penning an article in the New Vision dismissing Besigye’s claims of having won the election.

To many, that New Vision article was the last step in Kamya’s transition from an Opposition politician into one who openly worked with Museveni. When she was finally named Minister for Kampala in June, therefore, many knew that was always coming.

Appropriately deployed?
And Kamya would probably choose no better placement than being Minister for Kampala. If she handles the docket well, perhaps, her chances of ever being re-elected to Parliament in Rubaga North could be enhanced. Another interesting motivation for Kamya could be that the posting offers her an opportunity to get back at Lukwago and Kasibante.
Kamya claimed that Kasibante, with help from Lukwago, rigged her out of Rubaga North. The moment her appointment was announced, therefore, freshly re-elected Lukwago threw the first salvo, warning her of tough times should she attempt to complicate his tenure at City Hall. The two have since squabbled on a few occasions already.

As Kamya takes on her critics on the one hand, she has on the other hand taken to her new appointment as a fish does to water. In a video that was widely shared recently, Kamya pledged her support for Museveni come the 2021 elections.

Going by the Constitution, Museveni, now 72, is precluded from running for president in 2021 because he will then have surpassed the 75-year cap on age. But there have been voices about deleting the clause that caps the presidential age eligibility to 75 from the Constitution in order for Museveni to run again in 2021, and Kamya appears keen to claim ownership of the project.

In the video Kamya, with Museveni in attendance, says no one has as much stamina to take the country forward as the man who captured power close to 31 years ago.
We were not able to talk to Kamya for this article, but she told NBS TV’s Morning Breeze programme on Friday that she would rather stick with Museveni who is “on his way out” rather than back another person who could assume power and in the same fashion rule the country for decades to come.
On the programme, she referred to Museveni as a “mature politician” who is “tolerant” and talks to those opposed to him “civilly”.
Kamya said Museveni was better than all his challengers, and she stressed that she spoke with authority because she had worked with all the others.

Tracing Kamya’s woes in the Opposition
Gifted with a sharp wit and way above average oratory skills, Kamya was matched by only a few in outlining what she said were Museveni’s failings. As a publicist for the Reform Agenda, the umbrella under which Besigye campaigned for the 2001 elections, Kamya sounded like most Museveni critics, talking about how the former guerrilla leader had overstayed his welcome.
When Museveni invited former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi for his inauguration in May 2001, Kamya remarked that Museveni had thrown away the opportunity to grab a place among Africa’s statesmen and instead opted to join the dictators.

In Kamya’s estimation, the fitting guest of honour for what then was supposed to be Museveni’s last swearing-in, since the two-term limit for the presidency precluded him from running again, was the legendary freedom fighter Nelson Mandela. After winning the war against apartheid in South Africa, Mandela had ruled for only one term and retired.
To Kamya’s publicly expressed worries about Museveni’s legacy then, the President retorted: “Who cares about legacy?”

Kamya’s line of argument was that Museveni had made too many about-turns, not least about leaving power, that his reputation as a leader was at stake.
But even as Kamya made these public arguments about Museveni, some of the people with whom she was supposed to be fighting for regime change accused her of working with, or for Museveni.
Within the Reform Agenda, there was a group of youth dubbed “radicals” who sought to push Kamya out of the organisation. These were led by Samuel Makhokha, Simon Rutarondwa, Jethro Nuwagaba, James Birungi Ozo and Bob Kabushenga.

While Besigye was in exile in South Africa, having escaped from the country after the 2001 elections saying his life was in danger, these “radicals” petitioned the leadership of the pressure group, then under the late Sam Njuba, about the conduct of Kamya and a few other members. They claimed to have information that Kamya went to State House to meet Museveni under the cover of night, dressed in Islamic dress (hijab).
The petitioners failed to prove their case before the leadership of Reform Agenda and they declined to name the source of their information, but the rumour about Kamya would not go away.
Reform Agenda members also referred to consultations Kamya had initiated with the then exiled Besigye about possibilities of joining Museveni’s government.

Her accusers claimed that in the email Kamya informed Besigye that Museveni had offered her a position in Cabinet, which she was almost minded to take up because she was “keen to serve” the country and she feared the anti-Museveni struggle could take too long.

To many an Opposition member, this was evidence of Kamya’s lack of commitment to the Opposition cause. During the aforementioned appearance on NBS TV on Friday, Kamya revealed that she had been talking with Museveni since 2001 and that it took her “very long” to make up her mind.
She faulted members of the Opposition who she said “do not want to engage (and) hold themselves in a cocoon.”

Kamya develops ‘log in throat’
The intra-Reform Agenda bickering continued unabated. And there was an added angle to it. Kamya had attempted to block the merger between Reform Agenda and the Parliamentary Advocacy Forum (Pafo) led by Augustine Ruzindana and argued for Reform Agenda to be registered as a political party on its own. This was around late 2003.
Most members of Reform Agenda were against registering it as a party on its own, especially in view of a proposal in the law that would govern parties that anyone who had stayed outside the country for three consecutive years would not be eligible to lead a political party.

This proposal was seen as a direct attempt to preclude Besigye from the political showdown of 2006, and distrust of Kamya’s intentions heightened as she continued to argue for going through with the registration. Those opposed to registering the party then carried the day, and the objectionable clause would later be dropped.
Many of those who eventually became FDC members, however, had noted what they at least perceived as Kamya’s attempt to keep other groups, especially Pafo, out of what eventually became FDC.

They would eventually have their revenge at FDC’s first delegates’ conference towards the end of 2005. Freshly returned from exile and far more popular than any other Opposition figure, Besigye was the obvious choice for party president. All the other positions, except that of secretary general, were filled through “consensus”, with the late Dr Sulaiman Kiggundu becoming party chairman and Njuba emerging as one of three deputy presidents.

The party leaders argued that as they filled the positions, they needed to be alive to the idea of regional balance that seemed to have more traction then than is the case today. Basing on this, Kamya was urged to leave the secretary general job to former Serere Woman MP Alice Alaso, an easterner, since the central region had already scooped the national chairmanship.

Kamya rejected the argument, forcing the only vote on the day, which she lost. She had an emotional, teary reaction to the loss. She would, however, in the end argue that she did not actually cry over the loss, but that she had developed a log in her throat.

Besigye then had to start his party presidency by having to repair Kamya’s ego and convincing her to take up a position in his office as a special envoy. But the process of Kamya’s exit from FDC had started, right at the onset of the party’s launch.

The final journey
Kamya took up the assignment as an envoy in Besigye’s office, but it was not lost on her that she was distrusted. She would later try to foment unrest within FDC, accusing the party of sidelining Baganda politicians.
When party chairman Kiggundu died in 2008, Kamya moved to claim the opportunity to occupy the position that had been held by her fellow Muganda, but the party saw no need to hold a by-election or carry out whatever process it would take to enable Kamya to take up the position.

Instead, the late John Butime, then the vice chairman for western region, was asked to hold the position in acting capacity, to Kamya’s utmost chagrin. She eventually left the party to found Uganda Federal Alliance (UFA) in 2010.
On founding UFA, Kamya had revised her thesis to say Museveni was not necessarily the problem, but the system of governance. The current unitary system that concentrates a lot of power in the office of the President, Kamya argued, corrupts leaders.

She said in its place, Uganda should adopt a federal system of government that would place much of the power in regional governments.
She embarked on collecting signatures which she said she would use to compel the Electoral Commission to organise a referendum to change the political system in Uganda.

This initiative had not taken off by the time she joined Museveni and started agitating for him to stay on even beyond 2021, with all the presidential powers intact.

Kamya has yet to explain whether her thinking has revolved yet again, such that it is no longer the system of governance that matters, but the person who leads. Whatever it is that Kamya believes now, Lukwago’s prophesy about Kamya and Museveni has come true only within a space of a year.

Kamya’s fallout with FDC

Kamya took up the assignment as an envoy in Besigye’s office, but it was not lost on her that she was distrusted. She would later try to foment unrest within FDC, accusing the party of sidelining Baganda politicians.
When party chairman Kiggundu died in 2008, Kamya moved to claim the opportunity to occupy the position that had been held by her fellow Muganda, but the party saw no need to hold a by-election or carry out whatever process it would take to enable Kamya to take up the position. Instead, the late John Butime, then the vice chairman for western region, was asked to hold the position in acting capacity, to Kamya’s utmost chagrin. She eventually left the party to found UFA in 2010.
On founding UFA, Kamya had revised her thesis to say Museveni was not necessarily the problem, but the system of governance. The current unitary system that concentrates a lot of power in the office of the President, Kamya argued, corrupts leaders.

Appointment as Kampala minister
Many Opposition politicians claimed that Besigye, and not Museveni, had won the election, to which Kamya reacted by penning an article in the New Vision dismissing Besigye’s claims of having won the election.
To many, that New Vision article was the last step in Kamya’s transition from an Opposition politician into one who openly worked with Museveni. When she was finally named Minister for Kampala in June, therefore, many knew that was always coming.