Meanwhile by filing time of this story, the Inspector General of Police, Gen. Kale Kayihura had written to Mbabazi  informing him that his nationwide consultation would not be cleared by police.

amayemba@eagle.co.ug

Kampala-Former Ugandan Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi has said it is time for a peaceful transition in Uganda, where President Yoweri Museveni and the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) have been in power for 29 years.

On June 16 Mbabazi announced that he will challenge Museveni for the ruling party’s chairmanship and the 2016 presidential nomination.

Mbabazi, who is in Washington, told VOA that while the NRM has done good things for Uganda, he believes it’s time for a new leadership to do even better things. “The NRM has performed very well in the last 30 years. We’ve had the leadership which has led this very well during this time, but the Bible says there always time for everything. In my view and in light of the successes that we have had, it is reasonable to expect the continuation of that success even as it deserves change. So, my offer will be to lead that process of change,” he said in an interview on Daybreak Africa, hosted by VOA’s James Butty.

Mbabazi, the erstwhile National Resistance Movement (NRM) Secretary General, said he wants to be the engine of change, prompting a quick response from party chairman Mr Museveni, who said the former Premier was part of the government and that he had the capacity to effect any changes during that time.

For his ambitions, Mr Mbabazi has come under severe criticism from some NRM quarters, the most recent being the party Secretary General Justin Kasule Lumumba’s dismissal of her predecessor’s presidential bid under the banner of the NRM. Citing the NRM Constitution, Ms Lumumba said no NRM organ had endorsed Mbabazi for the 2016 elections.

“The NRM Constitution mandates the NRM Electoral Commission to organize and conduct elections within the organs of NRM. The NRM Electoral Commission can only nominate aspirants who have been recommended to the National Conference by the National Executive Council. Amama Mbabazi has not been recommended by either the Central Executive Committee or the National Executive Council as a presidential aspirant,” Ms Lumumba was quoted as saying.

She added: “Amama Mbabazi’s self-introduction to the National Electoral Commission purporting to be an aspirant for office of President on NRM ticket is irregular and illegal as his aspirations have not been endorsed by the NRM in accordance with the Presidential Elections Act and NRM Constitution.”

However, it seems Mbabazi is not deterred and during the VOA interview said the change he envisages will make Uganda a better country by reviving its democracy and institutions, transforming the economy, attracting local and foreign investment, and promoting equitable development. He said he’s willing to associate with everyone, including the opposition, if it will bring about unity.

“My point all along has been that Uganda now is at a stage where we need the effort of everyone. Nobody should be left behind for us to achieve the objective of takeoff, things we can do together in order to achieve that high objective,” he said.

Mbabazi said he has been holding discussions with people in the opposition because he doesn’t consider himself an enemy to anyone, and so, too, the opposition should not see him as an enemy.

“We are Ugandans who espouse maybe different ideas about how to run country. It only means that we have different approaches. And this should not really stop us from cooperating with each other,” Mbabazi said.

Uganda’s opposition parties have been advocating electoral reforms, including a call for an independent Electoral Commission whose members are not appointed by the President, and an end to government control of the media. Mbabazi said he has for long been an advocate for electoral reforms, even when he was Prime Minister.

“Obviously, we need reforms in our electoral laws. These are necessitated by the experience we’ve had from previous elections. We’ve had challenges in the courts of law. We had observers from all over the world. We have observers locally, and they made some observations, and we needed to take all these into account in order to do everything that was necessary to be done to have a better election this time around than we did the last time,” he said.

He said any democrat should be willing to support the idea that, where the law is lacking, it should be made better.

Mbabazi said he thinks he and Museveni are in agreement on the need for a peaceful transition of power in Uganda. But, he would not say if Museveni would be willing to step aside in the name of a peaceful transition.

“Well, peaceful transition may be via stepping aside, meaning resigning, or it may mean through a democratic process,” he said.

Meanwhile by filing time of this story, the Inspector General of Police, Gen. Kale Kayihura had written to Mbabazi  informing him that his nationwide consultation would not be cleared by police.

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Leaked U.S. State Department cables published by Wikileaks show that the U.S. Vatican Embassy saw the Pope Francis as a contender for the papacy in the 2005 conclave, reporting him to be a “wise pastor” who could appeal to allies of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

Six cables mention Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires who became Pope Francis on March 13. One of the unclassified cables, dated April 18, 2005, includes a detailed profile that examined the Argentine Cardinal as a possible successor to Pope John Paul II.

“Bergoglio exemplifies the virtues of the wise pastor that many electors value,” said the cable authored by the U.S. Embassy to the Vatican. “Observers have praised his humility: he has been reluctant to accept honors or hold high office and commutes to work on a bus.”

The cable was signed by the U.S. embassy’s then-Charge d’Affaires D. Brent Hardt and was sent the day the 2005 conclave began. It discussed the future Pope Francis as one of 16 possible candidates.

“Bergoglio is said to prefer life in the local Church as opposed to a bureaucratic existence in Rome’s ecclesiastical structures, but at the same time he has been willing to serve on the Vatican’s various supervisory committees,” the cable continued.

The embassy analysis said this preference indicated the cardinal could bridge what it characterized as a “divide” between the curia and the cardinal archbishops of local Catholic churches. In the embassy’s view, this made Cardinal Bergoglio “a good compromise candidate” for voting cardinals.

The embassy said the cardinal’s membership in the Jesuit order “could count against him,” citing some senior prelates who are “suspicious of a liberal streak in the order.”

The embassy analysis said Cardinal Bergoglio, along with Cardinals Ruini and Scola, would be “suitable to the Ratzinger camp.”

Like most observers, the embassy incorrectly believed there was not enough conclave support for Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who would be elected Pope Benedict XVI on April 19, 2005.

In late 2010 the whistleblower website Wikileaks published about 250,000 leaked State Department cables as part of its “Cablegate” project. Hundreds of the cables touched on Catholic issues, including 700 cables originating from the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See.

Catholic News Agency published multiple in-depth reports on the documents from late 2010 through September 2011.

Cardinal Bergoglio is mentioned by name in a total of eight State Department cables in the Cablegate archive, which does not contain all State Department communications from 2010 and earlier.

Several of the cables concern the Catholic Church’s sometimes tense relationship with the Argentine government, especially with current President Cristina Kirchner and her predecessor and late husband President Nestor Kirchner.

An Oct. 11, 2007 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires said that some observers consider Cardinal Bergoglio to be “a leader of the opposition” to the administration of President Nestor Kirchner.

The cable suggested that the conviction of the Catholic priest Christian Von Wernich for his role as an accomplice in murder, torture and illegal imprisonment during Argentina’s “Dirty War” would be used to undermine the moral authority of the Catholic Church and the cardinal.

One confidential cable sent in January 2010 mentioned Cardinal Bergoglio in the context of U.S. Ambassador to Argentina Vilma Martinez’s meeting with Gabriela Michetti. Michetti is a former vice-mayor of Buenos Aires who presently sits in the lower chamber of Argentina’s legislature as a national deputy from Argentina’s center-right Republican Proposal (PRO) party.

The cable said Michetti maintained “regular dialogue” with Cardinal Bergoglio and other Catholic groups

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