The highly anticipated televised debate for presidential candidates in Uganda’s General Election slated for next month appears unlikely to happen in spite of the organisers’ insistence that it will go on as scheduled on January 15.

The debate is expected to feature all eight candidates, although the focus will be on the more prominent ones — former Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi, Forum for Democratic Change flag-bearer Dr Kizza Besigye, and President Yoweri Museveni, who on January 26 will mark three decades in power.

But sources familiar with the debate’s organisers say the mixed messages from the Museveni camp — which threaten to scuttle the debate — point to concerns that the longtime leader may be humiliated and heckled, yet the returns on his participation in the debate are slim, given the low level of access to television in Uganda. Just 28 per cent of the population own television sets, according to a survey by research firm Ipsos-Synovate last October.

Sources added that assurances that President Museveni would not be embarrassed or booed; that the debate would be held before a predetermined audience; and that it would be moderated by a neutral person, most preferably a non-Ugandan, form the demands that the incumbent reportedly made as a prerequisite for participation, which the organisers refute.

“We have been in touch with representatives of all the candidates and each has given us their word that their candidate will turn up and that they are eager to participate in the debate. Nobody has made any demands as a condition for participation or raised any objection to any part of the arrangements,” said Joshua Kitakule, the secretary general of the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda (IRCU), who are jointly organising the debate with The Elders’ Forum of Uganda (TEFU).

By January 4, the debate seemed destined to take place until President Museveni cited his busy campaign schedule as a likely hindrance to his participation. This is a retreat from his earlier affirmation that he was ready for a live debate in which he would face his four-time challenger Dr Besigye and other contenders in the race.

“I have no problem taking on Besigye and the rest of the opposition in a live debate because I trust my mouth which can speak even more eloquently than other politicians,” President Museveni told journalists in November last year, in Gulu District, Northern Uganda, where he had been campaigning. 

After President Museveni voiced his concerns over the busy campaign schedule, the ruling party Secretary General Justine Kasule Lumumba quickly offered a suggestion that the National Resistance Movement might instead consider a representative at the debate, which organisers rejected.

“During a meeting held with all the eight presidential candidates’ campaign managers and agents on January 6, at Protea Hotel Kampala, all the participants unanimously agreed that candidates have a lot to gain by personal appearance in the debates and much more to lose by non-appearance,” noted a statement that IRCU released on January 7.

“If the candidate cannot come, we shall not accept representation. That chair will remain empty,” said Justice James Ogoola, who chairs TEFU. 

This would not be the first time President Museveni skips the debate. He did so in 2011, 2006 and 1996 when Uganda held its first-ever elections since Museveni had taken over power 10 years earlier.

According to Kibirige Mayanja, a 1996 presidential elections candidate — and the only one of the three contenders who turned up at the Kampala International Conference Centre venue — it will be unfortunate if Museveni skips a debate again because it would reflect badly on his democratic credentials.

“Debates are signs of maturity of a country’s democracy. It would have been assumed that the government that is building our democracy would be eager to demonstrate what it is doing on such a platform,” said Mr Mayanja, the former leader of the Justice Forum party.

According to IRCU and TEFU, the debate is aimed at “increasing clarity on the manifestoes and visions as presented by the presidential candidates, increase the sense of national unity and peaceful coexistence, enlighten the electorate to focus more on key issues other than political handouts, increase a sense of tolerance, love and patriotism among the different candidates and also deepen democratic governance in Uganda.”

Although the organisers first mooted the idea of a debate sometime in July last year, it got fanned by Mr Besigye in November after Museveni attacked him for telling lies because he, Besigye, had promised a 100 per cent increase to teachers’ salaries.

“When I made these proposals, people in government said I am a liar. In other countries, candidates hold joint live debates. I want to sit with Mr Museveni and the other candidates [at televised public debate] so that we discuss what we intend to do…I do not want to speak from here and he [Mr Museveni] also goes to Koboko and says I am telling lies,” Besigye reportedly said.

Four days later, Museveni responded saying he had no problem and was ready to debate Besigye or anyone else for that matter.