Men and women who will shape 2016 post-election

Clockwise: President Yoweri Museveni, Dr Kizza Besigye, Kale Kayihura, Erias Lukwago, Tumusiime Mutebile, Doris Akol, Gen Katumba Wamala, Justice Bart Katureebe, , Amama Mbabazi, and Prof. Badru Kiggundu.  

A lot has been noted in written and spoken word about 2015 so much that one runs the risk of repetition and feeding the readership on a stale dish of boredom. The year is past us now.

A new sun has risen. With its new rays come a mixed bag of fear, ambition and expectations all of which get lost in the sand dune of uncertainty. We can only predict.

The future by its very nature as author Edward Weyer Jr once remarked, “is like a corridor into which we can see only by the light coming from behind”.

Not even the brainiest analysts ever foresaw the Arab Spring, that movement which saw some of the world’s most powerful leaders like Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi leave power in the least expected of ways.

Fate’s winds blow hither and tither, felling men and women, turning tables of events in ways man can foresee not. That, of course, does and cannot hold us from peeping into the future.

These men and women, for the various reasons advanced, shall shape the terrain of 2016 in more ways than you and me. Here is why:

Yoweri Museveni
President Museveni, bidding to extend his 30-year reign (as of January 26) for another five years, will shape the year.

From the economy to the core of the State’s apparatus-the civil service, armed forces, Judiciary, Parliament and segments of the private sector, the firmer his grip on power gets, the heavier Museveni’s influence on the State hovers.

Opinion polls are in his favour and the writing on the wall indicates he will clinch another term and that exactly is why we must keep our eyes at his court yard.

First, his arch rival, Dr Kizza Besigye, promises this won’t be business as usual; the election is a liberation affair and not a mere ballot process.

And Museveni promises to crush anyone who foments violence. He also vows to leave the Constitution intact and retain the 75 year age bar, essentially making this his last term.

2016 will give the earliest signals if he can be held true to that and will also give a hint on the transition question ahead of 2021.

Museveni’s actions and words this year will feed into interpretations of Uganda’s transition question. How, if the skies fall on earth and he loses the election, will he treat the loss?

But even how he treats the victory, veteran lawyer and academic Dr Peter Musoke Gukiina of the civil society group Dignity Uganda opines, is significant.

In fact, Dr Gukiina says Museveni should save a country on the brink of anarchy by using 2016 to call a national dialogue to soberly map out a direction for the country akin to the 1979 Moshi Conference.