As Uganda prepares for 2021 general elections, a clique of wealthy civil society activists has finalized plans to revive The Democratic Alliance (TDA) an umbrella that seeks to unite all opposition leaders to remove President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni from power.
TDA collapsed prematurely in 2015 after the facilitators clandestinely worked against a traditional opposition strongman Kizza Besigye and supported Amama Mbabazi who still maintained his membership to the ruling party NRM.
As Besigye and Mbabazi fought for the flag, FDC, a powerful opposition establishment announced it had pulled out of the bloc and hence its collapse.
FDC had fronted Besigye as its flag bearer for 2016 Presidential Campaigns.
And thus, it emerged that TDA had been funded by a ‘mafia cult’ pitting Besigye against Mbabazi with an aim of exposing the all time powerful opposition leader (Besigye) as power hungry.
The major architects of the coalition were Bishop Zac Niriyingiye and Godber Tumushabe.
The duo is filthy rich, well connected and are funded by donors to remove President Museveni from power through Great Lakes Institute for Strategic Studies an NGO.
Resurfacing
Trumpet News has landed on credible information, that Godber, a lawyer by professional determined to remove Museveni from government has been redesigning TDA.
He is working clandestinely with other partners and an international consultant from South Africa on how to resurrect the umbrella without facing the previous challenges.
Against that backdrop, the consultant has since advised Godber to exclude political parties and reach out to only key opposition figures.
“We want these leaders to come as individuals representing the parties. Because once the parties elect and handover a flag to a leader, that means the leader has been entrusted with the powers and therefore he is in charge of the decision making,” said an insider privy to the plans to revive TDA.
The idea of sidelining parties stems from the 2015 experience in which FDC radicals stormed TDA summit in Bugolobi and hijacked Besigye when rumor spread that he had been advised to rally behind Amama Mbabazi.
The radical wing of FDC reasoned that by allowing Besigye to support Mbabazi was donating 15 years of struggle in which many have lost lives while others tortured and imprisoned by the regime.
FDC further said supporting Mbabazi meant handing over grassroot structures to NRM.
Against that background, Kizza Besigye assured Godber and his opportunistic faction that he was “either a candidate or a candidate”
His statement marked the beginning of the collapse of a cult that sought to promote Mbabazi’s leadership well knowing he was not the right person to take the joint opposition flag.
In the end, all opposition leaders contested independently and Kizza Besigye, a man portrayed as unpopular garnered 33% while Mbabazi scored 1.4%.
This website has learnt that the new TDA will soon re-launch after all opposition parties have chosen their flag bearers.
“But what we are doing for now is to reach out to these leaders whom we think have a role to play in causing change as we approach 2021,” added an insider who asked not to be named.
As to whether the TDA establishment will rebrand remains unknown.
The chief facilitator Godber Tumushabe couldn’t be reached for a comment. However, he in the recent past told this website that he was cooking something with other partners.
