Besigye may not run for Uganda presidency

Uganda’s opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye may not contest the country’s presidency in the next elections.

A day after he left hospital, Dr Besigye offered an olive branch to his tormentor President Yoweri Museveni, calling for a national dialogue to solve Uganda’s problems.

In an interview, he however declared that he would remain in the forefront of agitating for political change despite threats to his life and his term at the helm of the Forum for Democratic Change coming to conclusion.

“On the question of my role in politics, really I have never set out as a person to have a mission of being the leader. The mission is that of having qualitative changes in our country,” Dr Besigye told the Nation in Nairobi in the company of his wife Winnie Byanyima.

“I have offered myself for leadership in that process as and when it was needed.”

The Forum for Democratic Change Party which he leads limits the tenure to two five-year terms, which Dr Besigye has already served.

“I can no longer aspire, or offer myself to be a leader of the Forum for Democratic Change. But that does not take away my role in continuing to work for change in our country even if am not in the leadership of the party,” he said.

Dr Besigye, who has been undergoing treatment in Nairobi Hospital was discharged on Friday. He has been receiving treatment after suffering injuries during demonstrations over food protests in Kampala. 

Television footage had shown plainclothes officers breaking the windows of the opposition leader’s vehicle with a hammer before spraying him from hand-held cans as he waved to supporters.

However, when he spoke in Nairobi a week ago, President Yoweri Museveni told the press and civil society activists that the police used the paper spray as a reaction to Dr Besigye’s provocation.

"I think the lenses of CNN don't see very well because they did not capture this opposition leader attacking the policemen. I'm told that women use pepper spray to defend themselves against rapists but I had never heard of it before," he said.

"But it was that leader who started the attack," insisted the Ugandan president.

But the Ugandan opposition leader laughed off President Museveni’s assertions terming them as lies. He said the attack was premeditated and carried out by people managed by the police.

“I am sure that whoever has listened to government has treated the information with the contempt it really deserves. I could not have set off from home with a hammer similar to the one of the police."

He insisted the attack was carried out by then police under orders of the President.

“It shows the very ill intentions behind the actions for them to even try to manipulate what happened on that fateful day.”