Commercialisation has killed multi-party politics, says Besigye

Besigye, who was addressing the media at his offices on Katonga Road in Kampala on Wednesday, July 19, 2023, said that the broad problem Uganda finds itself in is the capture of the state by President Museveni with an intention to weaken all institutions in Uganda, including political opposition parties.

He alleged that commercialisation of politics was deliberately done by President Museveni as part of a plan to have weakened, and submissive opposition political parties that would not challenge him for power.

"My sense of the problem is in two areas. The broad problem is the state capture we are grappling with in our country. The capture was by Museveni, who captured the military, which then captured the state. The state that was captured also meant capturing all institutions, and this was done in a process," Besigye said while addressing the media.

He added: "There has been a capture of politics through the commercialisation of politics. This has been done deliberately. This has included the patronage system, which gives favours to the political elite. The broader part of the problem is that political parties have failed to adjust to the reality of state capture."

"When there is state capture, one cannot just present themselves as a political party that would function in Europe. Everybody you see in Parliament has paid their way to get there. I hear that the minimum you are supposed to pay to get to Parliament is Sh500 million; that was by the time of the last elections."

Besigye said he tried to convince the FDC party leadership to change the approach so it would adjust to what he believed were deliberate efforts by Museveni to weaken all opposition political parties. This, he said, didn’t materialise into anything as the party members were not convinced enough.

"In the FDC, I became completely convinced about the completion of the state capture after the 2011 elections; I was totally convinced elections would not remove the Museveni family. I went back to my party and suggested that they make adjustments to this new reality, and I proposed some of the adjustments they needed to make during a retreat. The solution was to change the party structures to fit the times. No one was convinced," he said.

Besigye said Museveni’s move to fund opposition political parties is aimed at legitimising his presidency.

"Museveni fears two things: firstly, fighting him outside elections, whether it is with guns or no guns; so he pays the politicians not to engage in fighting him outside elections and not for political players to get together," he said.

Besigye’s remarks come amidst allegations by the party’s spokesperson, Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, that both Nathan Nandala Mafabi, the party’s secretary general, and Patrick Oboi Amuriat, the party’s president, are moles of the state with unexplained sources of money.