Skip to main content
besigye kizza

Besigye Quits Race as FDC Closes Presidential Nominations

"Nominations for FDC flag-bearer for presidential elections has closed with: Hon Oboi Amuriat, FDC President & Amb Wasswa Birigwa," Dr Besigye said
posted onAugust 19, 2020
nocomment

The Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party has closed the process of picking presidential nominations ahead of the 2021 polls with four-time presidential contestant Dr Kizza Besigye opting to keep away from the elections.

"Nominations for FDC flag-bearer for presidential elections has closed with: Hon Oboi Amuriat, FDC President & Amb Wasswa Birigwa," Dr Besigye said on his social media on Wednesday evening.

He said he will focus on plan B as opposition candidates focus on the polls. He did not explain what his plan B will entail.

"I know you would want me to contest in the 2021 elections but I want to remind you that being out of the race doesn't mean I am out of the liberation struggle," Besigye told the FDC youths who had earlier demonstrated against his failure to pick nomination papers for presidential flagbearer.

On Tuesday, the party's national chairperson, Ambassador Wasswa Biriggwa, became the first party member to collect nomination forms for the presidential flagbearer position for the 2021 elections.

After picking the forms, Biriggwa said he had come to fix the "broken bones of Uganda".

With Dr Besigye out of the polls, it is believed that NRM's President Yoweri Museveni will have an easier task against Robert Kyagulanyi and others in the 2021 presidential elections. 

In an opinion poll published recently, President Museveni was ahead of his main political rivals.

At least 47 percent of respondents said they would have voted for President Museveni if elections had been held in early March.

Another 22 per cent said they would have voted for musician-turned-politician Robert ‘Bobi Wine’ Kyagulanyi, the first-term MP for Kyadondo East. Dr Kizza Besigye, who has contested against the incumbent in the last four elections, would have come third with 17 per cent of the vote, down from 35.4 per cent in the last presidential election.

The findings are contained in the Uganda Governance Pulse, a new opinion poll conducted by Research World International, a local polling firm, on behalf of the Great Lakes Institute for Strategic Studies, a local think-tank, and the Independent Expert Peer Group of policy and public analysts.

About Author

Kp Reporter - Chief editor

Join the conversation

Restricted HTML

  • Allowed HTML tags: <a href hreflang> <em> <strong> <cite> <blockquote cite> <code> <ul type> <ol start type> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <h2 id> <h3 id> <h4 id> <h5 id> <h6 id>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.