By Nathan Kikku Mubiru
Losing Maj. Gen. Mugisha Muntu to Alliance for National Transformation (ANT) brought upheaval for FDC, but Nandala Mafabi’s rise is proof that they’ll be sticking to their philosophy.
The succession decision didn’t take long to make after all. The new big boy of the Forum for Democratic Change is Rt. Hon. Nathan Nandala Mafabi, formerly an Accountant with the World Bank and leader of opposition in parliament, and it’s believed that the delegates didn’t even want to speak to anybody else about the position created by Kizza Besigye and his Katonga followers’ decision to jump ship to the NRM controlled National Unity platform.
Unsurprisingly, Nandala Mafabi should have accepted such an offer.
After all, vacant managerial positions in the top organizations– even what many believe will be fleeting ones – in governance don’t become available very often. But if there was little doubting the appeal of this political party to this man, what’s the appeal of the man to the party?
That should be fairly obvious. At the World Bank, he served as chairperson Public Accounts Committee, member of COSASE, Leader of the opposition, and therefore commissioner. He also has a rich history of Bugishu Cooperative Union to boast of.
But delegates’ interest wasn’t solely motivated by profile. Nandala Mafabi has been increasingly coveted since he left LoP, and there has been a suggestion that party elders moved as quickly as they did because he was considering retirement.
And then there’s the small matter of Nandala’s philosophy. He has been a keen follower of defiance to the extent of committing funds to Katonga although they have never provided accountability for the same.
He is also said to be a keen follower of broad-based mobilization and structural setup and for the first time, the party headquarters meet rent arrears for all party offices country over.
Furthermore, there seems to be something of the philosopher about him, even though he has explicitly denied being one in the past.
He has spoken extensively about the other leaders who have interested him, but has qualified this by – correctly – adding that, “In politics, the word ‘philosopher’ is used in a derogatory sense”. It doesn’t have to be, of course, and there’s little debate that FDC is a party with values that seem to align very closely with his own.
The stars have aligned somewhat to allow him to work with his members. Local council elections have been particularly postponed. There’s no by-election and about two years to the next general election.
Any new leadership arrival carries an element of gamble, but the FDC approach was systematic, data-driven, and proven to work. They quickly located a leader who seemed to match how the fore-leaders ran the party.
But delegates quickly and seamlessly moved for a man who matches their philosophy as a party and who has a track record of achieving what they want to achieve. It is this sort of strategic planning that is the reason why they remain a model opposition party for those looking up from below and wondering how they could ever hope to push the dictatorship to its heels.
And while it might be easy to be derisory about an opposition party making such bold choices, it seems completely intuitive to hire a secretary-general who’s previously shown himself to be a scholar of the game, and who’s earned the approval of arguably the very best in the business.
Of course, nothing is guaranteed in modern politics. Any change of this nature could end in tears, but delegates are already aware of this and FDC has given themselves as much of a chance of plowing straight through the costs of NRM’s pillage as possible.
They’ve given themselves a decent hand to operate from an extremely difficult position ahead of the 2026 general election. Now it’s up to Nathan Nandala Mafabi to do it as best he can.
