Tears roll as Besigye’s campaign message sinks in
By Timothy Nsubuga
15th Nov 2010
File photo, Dr.Kizza Besigye
Dr. Kizza Besigye, the IPC’s Presidential candidate, has adopted a very effective method of delivering his campaign messages.
Besigye’s new campaign style is simple too: Using information passed to him by his formidable research team, Dr. Besigye is now finding it easy to directly link Museveni’s failures to the unique problems affecting the local people he addresses.
At a campaign rally attended by thousands of cheering supporters, Besigye told the inhabitants of one sleepy trading centre in Wakiso district that as they wallowed in abject poverty, Museveni’s close relatives and friends seem to be literally sleeping on bundles of money.
In a veiled reference to the alleged theft of 500m shillings from Salim Saleh’s home, Dr. Besigye said some of Museveni’s close relatives who sleep on bundles of money only realise that some if it has been stolen when gaps develop in the money mattresses in sleep on.
The IPC Presidential candidate also established a direct link between the unnecessary deaths in their local health centres to the endemic corruption in the ministry of health that President Museveni has miserably failed to eradicate. Dr. Besigye also established a direct link between the very sorry state of our roads to corruption in the ministry of transport.
Because of the same corruption, Besigye said, local health centres across the country are ill equipped, and lack drugs and doctors who could easily save poor Ugandans from dying from treatable diseases. He said as a medical doctor himself, it deeply pains him to see Ugandans dying needlessly and promised that his government will devote 10% of the [7trillion] national budget to resuscitate the nation’s health system.
It all seemed too much to bear for one woman. Perhaps having finally realised that most of her daily problems are caused by President Museveni’s atrociously poor governance, she broke down and sobbed before the cameras; with tears rolling down her face.
Dr. Besigye has also succeeded in turning Museveni’s “Pakalast” campaign slogan on its head. “…If you vote for Museveni, then your poverty will remain………“pakalast”; his listeners would complete it for him. Lack of drugs, “pakalast”; corruption, “pakalast”; unemployment “pakalast”; those dying of jiggers, “pakalast”!
And he went on and on with his listeners still doing the chorus for him. Clearly, it seems Dr. Besigye’s campaign messages are sinking deep into the minds of voters, forcing some to cry in the process.
Whether that translates into actual votes remains to be seen. END. Please log into www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories and anytime mid-week for our news updates.
