After weeks of waiting, the highly billed Presidential Candidates Debate (whose winner will be difficult to determine) finally came; incredibly exhilarating, provocative and entertaining.
Hundreds filled the Kampala Serena’s Victoria Hall last evening to witness the country’s first ever televised Debate of its kind.
And despite the debate’s delay for more than an hour and a few elements pre-start grumblings from dozens of uninvited guests that were blocked at the entrances, these had no chance of submerging the next three hours of nonstop drama inside the conference hall.
With social media blasting with thousands of comments, queries and memes (the hashtag #UGDebate2016 was the leading worldwide twitter trend for more than 3 hours); the debate clearly didn’t disappoint.
Indeed the absence of the incumbent President Yoweri Museveni — which for days commanded the debate’s buildup news headlines — was only felt in his empty stand at the podium and rounded up in a few lines by Presidential Candidate Col Dr Kizza Besigye, “I was convinced yesterday that Mr Museveni would be here and I am disappointed that he isn’t.”
At the time of the debate, President Yoweri Museveni was meeting members of the NRM Women’s League at his country home in Rwakitura, after addressing several rallies in Bushenyi district.
At the shinny podium at the Serena, Candidates were put in their most uncomfortable positions by ruthless questions from the moderators Nancy Kacungira and Alan Kasujja, which were to be answered against a ticking clock, a warning alarm and time-out buzzer. No one was to be handled with kid gloves.
Several of these caught some of the candidates completely off guard, forcing them in stammering clumsy answers.
“We are going to make sure that there is a very good relationship between us and other countries where by for every Chinese or Indian who works here, we must have a Ugandan working in China or India,” muttered one of the candidates Joseph Mabiziri when quizzed on how he’d handle poverty eradication.
As the debate tempo intensified, the born-again pastor seemed to lose touch with his notes as the crowd cheered him mordantly.
“Women should be well represented at all levels from top to down there,” he suggested on effecting gender equality.
The debate focused majorly on national issue (another scheduled session will tackle the international aspect) that entailed the candidates’ manifestos, and their views on the national debt, education, corruption and good governance among others.
Through the segments the candidates went on fervently about their plans to revamp the country’s agriculture, restore the sold national parastatals, help create more jobs, open up the oil sector, transform the country’s education system, fight and eliminate corruption, ensure proper accountability of national resources and all that.
Dr Abed Bwanika had a warning to sound to the officials working in the current government once he takes office.
“We have very good laws; I will not enact new ones. But if you have worked in this government in the last 30 years, we are going to ask you to account for the wealth that you have made. Any property that you cannot explain clearly, it will revert to the people of Uganda.”
Overall, the only female candidate Maureen Kyalya uncharacteristically came off as composed and well measured. She must have rehearsed best of all and the crowd loved her.
Carefully but passionately playing the ethnic and gender cards, she was regarded by many as on-point and was severally applauded by the house.
Another bolt from the blue was Maj Gen Benon Biraaro who rode on his vast military history to mudslide the NRM regime, the UPDF and President Yoweri Museveni, terming his reign and decisions as a disaster.
Gen Biraaro, another of the NRM breakaways now standing on his Farmers Party ticket laid down his approaches to addressing the country’s agricultural challenges, which left some of the citizens regretting that such bright ideas would only have to remain at the podium.
Amama Mbabazi as expected, found himself having to deal with the ever-lurking ghosts of his past, but he nonetheless managed to tame them to everyone’s contentment.
During the house’s favorite segment where the candidates had to pose questions to each other, Mbabazi was targeted with questions from nearly everyone else.
“I would like to know whether the honorable Amama Mbabazi throughout his tenure of the various offices in government ever became aware of the type and extent of election rigging in this country, and whether in this particular election he thinks that we can work around it,” shot FDC’s Kizza Besigye.
“Do you moderator allow unfair questions,” Mbabazi responded, before being tasked by other candidates to address his controversial stance on homosexuality and his role in the Temangalo land saga.
The debate would also gravitate to a much personal level as Mbabazi cleared the air that he has never been gay as has been alleged by some of his opponents.
“When I was in Lango, I found that one of the MPs Hon Amongin was saying that I support gays and that I am gay. So I made a public challenge and stated that I am a married man and my wife is a woman. We have children and beautiful 11 grandchildren. I also challenged Amongin in case she had doubts, to put it to the test!”
The presidential debate, attracted attention and participation of some of the NRM notables on social media, attracting swipes from the opposition side.
The FDC spokesperson Hon Semujju Nganda wondered whether or not it wasn’t surprise that the NRM mouthpiece Ofwono Opondo who initially bashed the debate as elitist — saying that Museveni was better off attending to his rural supporters in western Uganda–; was closely following it on social media.
via: chimpreports
Catch the repeat of the full debate today on NTV at 3pm.
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