2016 presidential aspirant Amama Mbabazi Saturday interfaced with MPs Abdu Katuntu, Ssemujju Nganda and other panellists of the Capital Gang talk show.

The former premier, among other issues, clarified his stand on term limits and vowed to support his party’s pick only if the process is democratic. Sunday Monitor’s Ivan Okuda and Frederic Musisi transcribed excerpts of the show.

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You said you will not stand against President Museveni. Do you still stand by that position?

If anyone is elected in the NRM through a democratic process, how would I stand against him? Because I am in NRM, I am going to contest for the position of chairman and flag bearer and of course I will win. No doubt.

I am so far totally unopposed. It is a fact. So if NRM elects someone else and the result is the true expression of the party I shall abide by that.

Of course, I will tell you that what is happening now, including Kyankwanzi and the subsequent events, may raise a lot of doubt [about] the democratic process of choosing leadership, but I hope we can correct this.

READ: NRM disowns Mbabazi's candidature

Just to pick you up there, you sat in that chair promoting the Public Order Management Act, the law on phone tapping and term limits; these are some of the things available for the other side to catch up with you...

I shall respond to those, but the experience I was talking about is the December 2014 national conference of the NRM. Under the NRM constitution, it is the supreme organ of the party which elects the chairman. All the other leaders of the party are elected by the national conference and it is meant to be held at least twice every five years.

I had been urging the chairman to convene it mid-way to assess our progress, so finally when it happened in December 2014, the chairman addressed the gathering for the first time, gave a summarised version of his 62 page speech and distributed the speech to members to go home and read it.

No one was allowed to speak and that is how it ended. The other item was about me, the amending of the constitution. So in the five years the supreme organ has met once and no one spoke except the chairman.

And this hasn’t happened before?

No it has never. Maybe if I wasn’t on leave it would have been different.

Please respond to the term limits question.

Yes you are right. I was a vigorous defender of the amendment of the Constitution; I had many good reasons and still stand by those reasons.

Experience is the greatest teacher; we have many things that have come up. At the time we made these arguments, my main reason was that it limits the very concept of democracy, people having a choice, let people choose.

What I had in mind is that people should have choice, but where you find yourself in circumstances where people either are not conscious or the environment is not conducive for that freedom, then they cannot make a choice.

If you are in a situation where intimidation, using State machinery, corruption, bribery is used as a method of influencing people who live in abject poverty, then these people obviously will not have a free choice.

So for these reasons I think it makes sense to revisit this question of term limits. I think in order to minimise the abuse of State power, term limits are one of the main solutions.

BETI KAMYA: My issue is with accountability to the public. When Jim Muhwezi was censured, Norbert Mao said we know the business of Mukwano, Madhvani, can Muhwezi show us his source of money? Similarly, can Mbabazi show us the source of his money?

Beti who told you I was wealthy?

BETI KAMYA: What we read from the press; how Amama has bought cars for everybody going to stand, at some point when the army withdrew guards we read that sacks of money were found in your house.

SSEMUJJU NGANDA (interjects): In fact, his house in Kololo has more space for money than people.

It is true I am not poor, both mentally and physically. But all the money I have I can account for. It is not true my house had sacks of dollars and pounds.

How will you fund your campaign?

I can tell you we are ready to fund the campaign to the maximum.

There is also the issue of your family being at the forefront of your campaign, we are worried of a State House where the First Lady and in-laws will overshadow the President.

I am proud of my family. I am happy I have children that are responsible; who feel indebted to the public to contribute to society. I don’t discourage them from participating in public affairs. In the campaign that is beginning, it is not true my family is playing a leading role.

In the past we have gone through a process of quiet consultations, our network of consultations is not known, my family naturally comes up because I am visible.

I have a comrade called [Kahinda] Otafiire; he is my dear comrade for a long time. I recruited him a long time ago and he says consistent to himself all sorts of things and one of them is that my family runs NRM like a business, including supplying food.

My wife has never supplied food to anybody, except at my house if you come as a guest. Kahinda Otafiire has been a beneficiary of that.

Please also respond to the laws engineered by you, such as the Public Order Management Act (POMA) and the phone tapping law which has been contested.

Yes, I supported it and still support it. The POMA was necessitated by nullification of Section 32(2) of the Police Act which gave the IGP [Inspector General of police] power to grant or disallow people permission to exercise their freedom of assembly.

Court did comment and we found it necessary for a law to regulate these activities like demonstrations. That Act doesn’t give power to police to grant or not grant anybody, they have no room, zero. Their job is to maintain peace. This law clearly protects the public from arbitrary power and abuse by police. It [police] must stop violating the law.

On the phone tapping, I made this point in Parliament that where there is no law prohibiting an act or action, then the assumption is that it is lawful. There was no law regulating State machinery to listen in and investigate.

This law limited powers of the State, for example, nobody should be tapped without an order of a High Court judge. Did you know that? As to whether the law is being breached is a different question.

Ofwono Opondo observed that you are unpopular in the same NRM organs that overwhelmingly voted you as secretary general...

If I was unpopular, those who say I am unpopular would be at the forefront of that being be put to test. I wouldn’t be prevented from carrying out consultative meetings of NRM. I subscribe to the principles of NRM, the things that took us to war and the things for which hundreds of Ugandans died.

I lost many comrades in this fight. One of the core principles of NRM is democracy, that is why I shall stand against this idea of sole candidate; that is counter to the heart and spirit of NRM and my duty and commitment to the struggle for transformation means I have no choice but to stand firmly against that. We must build our party to conform to the core principles.

What is your last word?

People are saying I have been in the party all this time, and they are asking ‘what will you do that you were unable to do in the 30 years you have been in government to improve things?’ Those who ask this should learn where power lies in Uganda.

Article 99 of our Constitution vests Executive authority in the President. What I am asking Ugandans to do is to give me that power to take those decisions because I have never had it.