By Wesley Spartan
United States President Hussein Barack Obama has appointed a special envoy to Uganda, Thomas Pereira to keep a close eye on the 2016 Uganda general elections.
Signs from the gathering clouds indicate the 2016 elections would be problematic given that the president will be vying, among others, with his former special game planner and executioner, super minister and bosom friend, John Patrick Amama Mbabazi aka JPAM.
The above attributes gives Amama an advantageous position of knowing the inside of Museveni’s political kitchen.
That Museveni’s former top intelligence chief, Gen David Sejusa, his former Vice president, Prof Gilbert Bukenya and army commander, Gen Mugisha Muntu are now with the opposition not to mention his three time presidential rival, Dr Kizza Besigye, would complicate things for Museveni—at least in theory.
Alert to Mbabazi’s propensity to spoil things for him, president Museveni has moved faster to put a tab on his campaigns. For instance, Mbabazi’s campaign posters are being pulled down by police wherever they are. Mbabazi has been stopped from moving to the countryside to hold his consultative meetings. So police arrested a number of his campaigners across the country.
Before even he declared his presidential bid, Museveni called MPs of his ruling party the NRM to Kyankwanzi National Leadership School and made them clear him as the party’s 2016 sole flag bearer.
Museveni also dropped Mbabazi as prime minister and later as the secretary general of NRM. When he declared his bid, Museveni hopped on the next plane to Uganda from South Africa and issued a statement countering his bid as well as summoning the man for private talks that ended in deadlocks as far as talking Mbabazi out of the 2016 race were concerned.
Given that background, Obama has chosen to act a bit earlier by dispatching his own special envoy Pereira to see how things would be spanning right from the early stages of campaigns to the final whistle.
Announcing Thomas’ appointment, US secretary of state, John Kelly said he has over 20 years of operating in stubborn spots around the world, including the Middle East.
Besides Uganda, Kelly pointed out that Thomas will be playing the same roles in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo who are also scheduled to hold general elections later after Uganda.
Kelly did not, however, say when Thomas will arrive in the country. Apart from confirming the appointment, US Embassy sources also lacked information regarding when Thomas will touching down in the country.
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