A few days ago, Uganda’s most indefatigable opposition leader, retired Col Kiiza Besigye, the first dissident to abandon President Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Movement and vie for the presidency against him, took part in a political talk-show on a local FM station, the Central Broadcasting Service.

It was an opportunity for him to address accusations by some opposition-party supporters that he and only he was responsible for the collapse of efforts by opponents of President Museveni to identify and rally behind a single presidential candidate in next year’s presidential election.

A few days before, Besigye had refused to step aside for former prime minister and his critic John Patrick Amama Mbabazi aka JPAM, who, for all sorts of reasons, is seen by many as the most likely candidate to unseat Museveni.

As if he had been hired to pin Besigye down, the talk-show host kept pummelling him with questions that mirrored popular complaints about what some in the opposition see as his selfish conduct.

Besigye put up a good fight. He asserted his credentials as a veteran of the struggle against “the Museveni dictatorship,” questioned Mbabazi’s bona fides in that struggle, and made it clear to those who did not want him to stand that they were free to support whomever they wanted.

Few callers spared him their anger and frustration. They accused him of, among other things, believing that the position of opposition flag bearer belongs to him, and that somehow only he can defeat Museveni.

The fact of the matter is that Besigye was encouraged by large numbers of members of the party he once led, the Forum for Democratic Change, to seek to be its presidential candidate.

He did and they elected him, after which he became a key contender for the opposition’s “unity candidate.” Besigye kept reminding his tormentors of this fact.

It was a curious argument coming from a man who has tried to defeat Museveni in three previous elections and failed. Museveni has also been heard to justify being in power for nearly 30 years and refusing to step aside, precisely on the grounds that Ugandans still want him to rule, which they show by electing him each time his party chooses him as its candidate.

Remarkably, Besigye has many supporters among Uganda’s intellectual elite who for many years have criticised Museveni vociferously for refusing to make way for other people to run the country.

Besigye’s conduct and arguments raise a key question: Is the problem with long-serving leaders such as Museveni the fact that they won’t let go, or is it the way they behave while in power and how that impacts the lives and wellbeing of their citizens?

If the problem is that they refuse to let go easily, then, clearly, questions must be asked of opposition politicians such as Besigye who also seem to find it difficult to step down and make way for others in their political organisations.

If they won’t give up in favour of others while in opposition, will they do so once they are in power? Perhaps, but how can one be sure?

And if the issue is a leader’s conduct while in power, perhaps then it is time to redirect the critique of the likes of Museveni from focusing on longevity to quality of leadership and achievements. The need for this shift becomes clear if one examines the careers of a number of other well-known opposition politicians across Africa.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, perennial opposition leader and presidential candidate, 82-year old Etienne Tshisekedi, refuses to leave the leadership of the Union for Democracy and Progress, a party he founded in 1982, after years of serving in senior political positions, including as prime minister under Mobutu.

Why? Apparently he claims that his likely successors are “not credible” because they have not been in opposition long enough.

In Senegal, former opposition leader, Cabinet minister, and eventually two-term president, and now again opposition leader, Abdoulaye Wade, also refuses to relinquish the leadership of his Senagalese Democratic Party (PDS).

The 90-year old who while in office was criticised for corruption, nepotism and human-rights abuse and who even tried to run for a third term, apparently says none of the younger members of the PDS who could succeed him is “credible.”

In Togo, 79-year old Gilchrist Olympio,who for many years sought to remove the late Gnassingbe Eyadema from power and has sought to do the same to his son Faure, won’t let go of his Union of Forces for Change despite his ill-health.

Closer to home, we have Kenya’s Raila Odinga, whom some Kenyans call “the father of democracy.”

After being minister for many years and prime minister, too, and after running for president twice and failing, he’s now reported to be preparing to run again, despite venting about Yoweri Museveni, Paul Kagame, and Pierre Nkurunziza for not making way for others.

With opposition leaders like these, why fight presidential longevity?

Frederick Golooba-Mutebi is a Kampala and Kigali-based researcher and writer on politics and public affairs. Email: [email protected]