Gen. Muhoozi has a right to contest for President, says Prof. Ssempebwa

POLITICS 

KAMPALA - Prof. Frederick Ssempebwa is one of the most respected and most widely consulted lawyers in Uganda. Early this week, the 80-year-old sat down with Umaru Kashaka and Edward Anyoli for an interview on a wide range of issues at his law firm in Kampala.

Robert Kyagulanyi, also known as Bobi Wine, is currently the face of Uganda’s opposition, but can he steer the country in the right direction if elected?

So far, we don’t have a school for presidents, and I don’t know of any institution that trains them. Someone is always guided, and if they have the acumen and the basic education, and they select their advisors carefully, there is no reason why they cannot lead the country. We have had leaders elsewhere who came from culture and music backgrounds and successfully led their country.

The fact that you have been a musician might even add some advantage to you, because you have been dealing directly with the people, trying to convince them through a different mode of communication. You convince them about the message you want to deliver and that, if applied to administration and politics, might be an advantage. Many of these leaders who have been successful, the (army) generals in West Africa, Nigeria and so on, were just soldiers, but they succeeded.

Now we hear there is a soldier in Burkina Faso (Capt. Ibrahim Traoré) who is doing wonders. He is not trained in anything other than wielding guns and so on. So, you cannot just disparage music as a basis of someone’s knowledge and training, just as you cannot disparage other sources of knowledge.

And is the First Son, Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, free to contest for Uganda’s presidency?

It is a human right to contest for any office and as a human rights lawyer, I would say he has a right (to contest), although there are misgivings about the son of a president contesting immediately after his father, and people are complaining that this will be creating a dynasty — a sort of elective kingship.

Those who believe that it is wrong have the right to contest (with him in the election) and make sure that does not happen. So, he has a right to contest, just as you don’t believe in his capacity or in having elective dynasties. If you don’t believe in his capacity or in having elective dynasties, you have a right to go and prevent him (from being elected president) through the ballot.

Can opposition political parties unite and field a joint presidential candidate in the 2026 election? 

Unity in the Opposition is a difficult matter. We tried it in The Democratic Alliance (TDA) in September 2015 and we almost succeeded in agreeing on principles of uniting the Opposition and my job there was to make sure that taking power is not a principle because if you are just uniting to take power, then you will be dismantled and the unity will not last.

Because if you don’t take power, it’s the end, and you blame each other. So, unity has to come on the basis of principles and objectives. But when we were agreeing on our principles (as TDA), people were looking at the next election, and the question that disrupted the entire thing was: Who was going to be a joint candidate? Once that couldn’t be agreed on, TDA collapsed. 

Prof. Frederick Ssempebwa

We have less than a year until the 2026 election. What needs to be done to ensure a free and fair election come 2026? 

Well, elections are successful because of two major factors. The first factor is the legal infrastructure that has to be in place to assist the other factor of organising elections. The legal infrastructure we have in place has been quite reasonable, although there have been demands by different groups to make what they perceive to be improvements, mainly in the way the Electoral Commission (EC) is appointed, to make sure that it is capable of being completely impartial and organise elections without being accused of being one-sided. That call has been made for quite a long time.

The worry is that the President appoints the EC; I don’t share that 100% myself because someone has got to make an appointment, but the process could be modified in such a way that it is transparent in the way the EC comes in place. So, for transparency and fairness, there should be a commission or a group that looks at the aspirants, sieves them and makes recommendations to the President. The other aspects mainly are in the other factor of organising elections.

The complaints have always been made about interference by mainly the forces; the Police and the army; that is valid, but to me, the major problem that we are facing in organising these elections is that when laws are made, they are made too late for the EC to make proper arrangements to apply those laws. But the other problem is the sensitisation of the voters. You cannot sensitise the people in the few months before the voting.

Now, this is a time when civic education should have started because we have youngsters who are qualified to vote, but they need to be sensitised about the whole process so that they are not misled by some politicians. I can’t blame the EC because I don’t know their problem, but I could imagine that they probably haven’t been facilitated sufficiently to carry out this exercise of sensitising the voters.

What do you make of Uganda Law Society president Isaac Ssemakadde’s style of leadership? 

I support Ssemakadde’s style of leadership, which he calls radicalism because most of us have been engaging with the Judiciary for better services for a long time without success. We all want the Judiciary to be committed to service, end case backlog and not dilly-dally in making decisions.

Therefore, radicalism to me meant that he had to be tough, but, on the other hand, be accommodative towards those he is challenging so that they can listen and change. He has to deal with the Judiciary, the Attorney General’s office, the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and so on. And if you are not accommodative, then it becomes a problem, and my departure from his style of leadership is that I would not have used the language he used against the DPP.

How can young people live a long life like you? 

Well, that is a personal choice, but you should personally choose to live longer. One thing I have done myself is to be active. I have been in sports, playing tennis and other games. But I used to eat recklessly when I was young. I used to eat junk, pork on the road, and so on, until something happened to my feet. That is when I decided to eat significantly less meat and increase the vegetables instead. I now eat meat like twice a month. So, I would advise young people to exercise and control their diet. There are a lot of advisories in the newspapers as to what you should eat and avoid.

How would you like to be remembered? 

Well, that is not my choice, but I would like to be remembered as a person who has contributed to the well-being of the country. I don’t think I have succeeded, but I have tried my best to contribute to the advancement of this country. I would be happy to be remembered in that aspect.