Amuriat: No opposition presidential candidate should quit race despite police brutality – unless one has an alternative

Patrick Oboi Amuriat (POA), the 2021 presidential candidate for the main opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party, has told change-seeking forces to keep in the race to unseat incumbent Yoweri Kaguta Tibuhaburwa Museveni.

Amuriat is one of the 10 opposition candidates seeking to end Museveni’s 34-year rule.

Acts of brutality meted on Amuriat and other candidates like Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine of the National Unity Platform (NUP) has made some ponder on the option of withdrawing from the race barely two months to polling.

On November 18, most opposition candidates halted their campaigns in solidarity with Bobi Wine who had been detained in Jinja’s Nalufenya for flouting Covid19 prevention guidelines by holding mass rallies instead of meeting 200 people as recommended by the Ministry of Health (MoH).

But Amuriat insisted suspending campaigns would work to Museveni’s advantage.

On December 01, Bobi Wine suspended his campaigns following chaotic scenes in Mukono and Kayunga.

He met the Electoral Chairperson Justice Simon Byabakama to lodge his complaint at the elections management body in Kampala on December 02.

But Amuriat has encouraged his fellow opposition contestants to keep in the race and face Museveni head-on.

He says the only reason any opposition should quit the race is if s/he has a viable alternative. He also thinks the opposition must come together and agree on other options before withdrawing from the 2021 polls.

“I believe that anybody pulling out of the campaign should have an alternative; that is the alternative that we have got to define. If that alternative is not defined, then when we are not really ready for any pullout,” Amuriat said ahead of his campaigns in Mbarara on December 02.

“It would be important that, maybe the candidates who are now facing this kind of thing do meet and talk to each other and let our views be heard against the views of the other candidate.”