Patrick Oboi Amuriat defeated Major General (Rtd) Mugisha Muntu, now the outgoing President of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) at Namboole Stadium to herald a new dawn of political defiance.
Amuriat garnered 641 votes against Muntu’s 463, a difference of 178 votes while the other two candidates Moses Byamugisha and Dan Matsiko managed only 3 and 2 votes respectively.
On Friday during the hotly contested election, POA (Patrick Oboi Amuriat) promised to invest all his energies in organising the party for defiance.
He said: “Some people think that we must massage the dictator. The dictator needs to be pushed. I want you to prepare for these struggles.”
He said time for putting on neck ties and suits is over since he is going to be in the trenches.
“I feel very uncomfortable when most of the time of our leaders is spent at the headquarters,” he said.
The former three-term MP for Kumi) is the face of a factional difference of opinion on strategy for taking power. In some ways, he represents the old school ‘radicalism’ which described FDC’s foundation politics.
“POA has promised to invest all his energies in organising the party for defiance. There we know what we are going for,” said FDC deputy publicist Harold Kaija about the election.
But political analysts say with Amuriat’s win, it could be true that he is a new face, but he will be a mere dummy and the real party president will be Dr Besigye. They insist that decisions are going to be taken at Kasangati. Amuriat will be a mere conveyor belt.
Throughout this campaign, Amuriat has come across as a Besigye surrogate. Indeed, Besigye joined him on the trail, promoting his brand of defiance politics and escorted him to the ballot.
The FDC maintains that Besigye should be president of Uganda today, having been cheated out of victory in 2016 by Museveni, but so-called moderates disagree with his ‘confrontational’ politics.
