Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Kampala (Fides Service)- Tomorrow 23 February 10.4 million Ugandans are called to vote in presidential and parliamentary elections.
There are five candidates for presidency but the competition is really between outgoing President Yoweri Museveni and his former personal doctor Kizza Besigye, leader of the Forum for Democratic Change. According to surveys in recent weeks the President who is the leader of the National Resistance Movement should gain 47 per cent of the votes and Besigye 36 percent.
Tomorrow’s will be the first multiparty elections since Museveni took power in 1986. The people voted for a return to multiparty system in a referendum in July last year.
In 1982 when Museveni was leader of the guerrilla group which later seized power in 1986, Besigye became his personal doctor. After becoming a government minister in 1998, the former doctor broke with Museveni when he published an article accusing the President of being a dictator. When he failed to get elected in 2001 Besigye took refuge in South Africa saying he feared for his life. In 2005 he returned to Uganda and was arrested and detained for a brief period on charges of treason. The trial of Besigye and 22 other people accused of terrorism led to conflict between the High Court in Kampala and the Military Court. The High Court granted bail to 14 of 22 defendants who had already stood before a Court Martial, despite a sentence of unconstitutionality passed by the Constitutional Court. In retaliation the military court issued a mandate for the arrest of the 14 men who were sent back to prison. Ugandan army troops staged a siege in front of the High Court where the 22 men will be tried on charges of treason with Besigye whose trial however has been adjourned to 15 March after tomorrow’s elections. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 22/2/2006 righe 30 parole 356)
