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CNN’s Christiane Amanpour got it wrong on Uganda
Moses Byaruhanga
What you need to know:
It is true sometimes police may make mistake and shoot where one didn’t have to do so.
Recently while campaigning in Koboko, Mr Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine, claimed he had endorsed the NRM parliamentary candidate, Dr Charles Ayume. The person Bobi Wine say he was endorsing in an interview on one of the TV broadcast denied him. Dr Ayume says he is an NRM flag bearer and as such, he will campaign and vote for President Museveni.
If Bobi Wine was serious he would have had Dr Ayume on the podium and introduced him to the voters. Why is he doing this blackmail? He knows he has no NUP candidate in Koboko. NUP has candidates in only 51 per cent of the parliamentary seats. So in areas where he has no candidates he will be claiming others who have their own presidential candidates. This leads to the question, how can one easily be President of Uganda without even a simple majority in Parliament? For Bobi Wine to have a simple majority in parliament, he needs all his candidates to win which is next to impossible.
If he gets MPs, it will not be more than 30. Remember FDC, which is the biggest Opposition party in Parliament, has only 36 MPs. Now they will be sharing between FDC and NUP and in many areas where each has a candidate in the same constituency, they will divide Opposition votes and make the NRM candidate sail through.
So a President of Uganda without a majority in Parliament would be disastrous. What if, for instance, Parliament refuses to pass a Budget? You have seen in USA when the House of Representatives impeached President Trump, but in the Senate, where Trump’s Republican Party has a majority, stopped the impeachment. Had the Democrats a majority in the Senate, President Trump would have been impeached.
To the elite who want to support Bobi Wine, they should know that it is the NRM that will have a majority in Parliament, hence giving your vote to Bobi Wine or any other candidate who cannot command a parliamentary majority, is a waste of time and vote.
This is the Bobi Wine whom Christiane Amanpour of the CNN interviewed last Wednesday where she exhibited unprofessionalism. She interviewed someone making accusations against government without giving someone from government a right of reply. I always watch her programmes, but this one was so unprofessionally carried out.
I wish Ms Amanpour had asked Bobi Wine why he holds his political meetings in disregard of SOPs intended to curb the spread of Covid-19, a thing CNN accused President Trump of doing and called Trump’s rallies master spreaders. Ms Amanpour should have asked him why he address his rallies in close proximity with his supporters without wearing masks. These are the issues CNN accused Trump of doing. Talk of double standards. The encounters Bobi Wine has had with police are to do with him disregarding guidelines to do with curbing the spread of Covid-19.
Anyway, Amanpour should wait for the news in January when President Museveni will be announced as the president -elect of Uganda and like President Trump, Bobi Wine will claim that he was cheated and CNN will take it up from there.
My advice to Bobi Wine is that he can avoid encounters with police if he starts observing SOPs given by the ministry of Health. It is true sometimes police may make mistakes and shoot where one didn’t have to do so.
However, all this can be avoided if one is disciplined. I also advise all NRM candidates to emulate President Museveni, who has avoided big gatherings amid Covid-19.
President Museveni has been meeting parliamentary candidates, district chair candidates, city and municipal and incumbents who didn’t go through the primaries, among others. That method of campaigning is more effective than rallies.
Mr Moses Byaruhanga is a Senior Presidential
Adviser on Political Affairs.
