By Denis Jjuuko
Looking at the FDC elections from a distance and reading what people are posting, it is very clear that Gen Mugisha Muntu is loved by the elite. I don’t know much about POA but as again as an observer, I only know Muntu from the distance. Even though I have met him once or twice many many years ago.
Muntu seems like a very nice humble man who doesn’t have any airs about his accomplishments. He listens in meetings and asks hard questions. He likes to imagine scenarios of a battle—what would the army do in such situations?
Muntu seems to be somebody cut out for implementing stuff. If you are a president and need a prime minister, he seems to be the guy who can deliver. He seems to be genuine on what a country needs and could get any country better. I have never heard of any corruption scandals about him even when he was army commander. Probably as his colleagues were stealing, he was focused on his job.
But he is not a politician to me. He doesn’t seem to have the crossover appeal of many politicians who can go on the platform and wow a crowd in Katanga and then have a packed conference at Kampala Serena wild. That is why the elite are posting on social media that he was the better candidate. Probably he was.
He is not an orator either and seems to be very calculative of his next steps. His humility and his conviction that he must always do what is right is probably his biggest asset and liability at the same time. That is why you won’t see him in defiance campaigns and the like. He might think this isn’t the right thing and unlike most politicians, he won’t do something he doesn’t believe in just for political gain.
Muntu seems to believe in democracy. Yet democracy in Uganda is partly a fallacy. And that is why Muntu conceded defeat with honour. He is a gentleman not a politician. He needed to be both.
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