Kizza Besigye

Warren Kizza Besigye Life( born 22 April 1956), commonly known by his nickname Colonel Dr. Kizza Besigye, is a Ugandan physician, politician, and former military officer. He served as the president of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) political party and was an unsuccessful candidate in Uganda's 2001, 2006, 2011, and 2016 presidential elections, losing all of them to the incumbent, Yoweri Museveni, who has been president of Uganda since 1986. The results of the 2006 elections were contested in court, and the court found massive rigging and disenfranchisement. Besigye allowed an early internal FDC election for a successor president, which took place on 24 November 2012. Quotes I can say without the slightest fear of contradiction that I do not have ambitions of being a leader. I only undertake leadership simply to try and have a country where everyone and myself can enjoy our full rights. Once this is achieved, you will never see me in these headaches." "Time has come to change the shape of this country in terms of managing its affairs and have a government that lifts peoples' aspirations and ensuring fair distribution of the national cake." "*I walked out of the government to fight and put right what had gone wrong." "The man has forgotten that being a President is being a servant of the people, not their master. It is the people to tell the President what to do, not the President dictating what should be done." "*Restoring the rule of law was one of the major reasons why we went to the bush. This has been long forgotten. That is why you saw soldiers hijacking the High Court recently." "*The crowds you see following me wherever I go, show how disappointed people are with Museveni." Violence was the mainstay of the campaign period. Starting with 2001, they deployed troops to patrol all areas around polling centres. They just keep on moving from the night before, throughout the morning. They were passing the message to people that if you voted for me, war would break out. In 2006, it was an election under a supposedly multiparty system. We had some kind of organisation that had structures in the country, which could organise and appoint officials. So we [the FDC] were structurally stronger. But I had been in exile for 4 years prior to the election. I [arrived] on the eve of the election; in fact I [reached] Uganda on the 26th of October. The election was in February. I only stayed 14 days during which I was appointed formally by the party as the flag bearer, as the presidential candidate. I think it was 10 days after that election I was then arrested and charged with treason, terrorism, illegal possession of guns and rape. Three of those charges were capital offences and the national nominations took place while I was still in prison. For part of the campaign I was in prison. I only got bail in January, a month before the elections. In the 2011 campaign, we had the best kind of preparation of all the three. First of all, in all of the five years between 2006 and 2011 I was free – [I was] disturbed by all these cases, but I was not in prison. I was able to move around the country and interact with people on the grassroots several times. We were able to renew all our grassroots structures and the FDC [Forum for Democratic Change] had elections from the polling stations. And we had training of our leaders External links Category: living people