{UAH} Joker in the pack: Will Prof Bukenya have the last laugh in 2016? - News - www.theeastafrican.co.ke

http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/Will-Prof-Bukenya-have-the-last-laugh-in-2016/-/2558/2019766/-/37xub0z/-/index.html

Joker in the pack: Will Prof Bukenya have the last laugh in 2016? - News

Former Ugandan vice president Prof Gilbert Balibaseka Bukenya has generated much media attention by vowing to take on incumbent Yoweri Museveni in the 2016 presidential election.

The question analysts are asking is: Could he turn out to be the joker in the pack and actually turn the tables on his former boss?

By his own admission, the odds are tipped against Bukenya, 64, who last month claimed that Museveni had already rigged the next election; still, the former number two says he has a trick or two up his sleeve.

However, it is inconceivable that he will challenge Museveni in party primaries of the National Resistance Movement — Museveni has twice been elected unopposed as the party's chairman and presidential candidate since NRM was formed in 2005.

Indeed, in previous intra-NRM elections, Bukenya has fared miserably against the party's lesser lights. He was soundly beaten by Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi in the race for NRM secretary general in 2010 during the delegates' conference, when he polled 903 votes against Mbabazi's 5,695.

One option for Bukenya would be to quit NRM early enough, lose his Busiro County North constituency parliamentary seat in the process and either form his own party or join forces with the opposition; he has lately been courted by the Democratic Party.

Yet in doing so, he plays into the hands of the ruling party, which would organise and counter the Bukenya threat.

"There is not a single law that stops me from changing a party," he told journalists last month.

Analysts say the factors in Bukenya's favour are his clout in Uganda's central region as well as the support of the Catholic Church, which could afford him the last laugh — his middle name can be translated roughly as, "They laughed at him, but he proved them wrong." But at whose expense?

Can he upstage his former boss, or could he be the Trojan horse that opposition politicians like Kizza Besigye, Beti Kamya and Norbert Mao would need to team up with to beat the incumbent?

On the one hand, Bukenya is a pragmatic politician and efficient worker, but he also has a controversial lifestyle that has made him cannon fodder for the tabloids.

Yet during his eight-year stint as VP, the professor of medicine carved out his own sphere of influence by getting his hands dirty promoting upland rice, which became a runaway success that pulled in the numbers for the ruling National Resistance Movement party.

Joker in the pack: Will Prof Bukenya have the last laugh in 2016? - News - www.theeastafrican.co.ke
http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/Will-Prof-Bukenya-have-the-last-laugh-in-2016/-/2558/2019766/-/37xub0z/-/index.html