{"id":1067,"date":"2015-04-21T18:55:40","date_gmt":"2015-04-21T17:55:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedin\/?p=1067"},"modified":"2015-04-21T18:55:40","modified_gmt":"2015-04-21T17:55:40","slug":"1067","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/2015\/04\/21\/1067\/","title":{"rendered":"The Interim President"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Satish Sekar \u00a9<\/span> Satish Sekar (April 20th<\/sup> 2015)<\/p>\n

The Temporary President<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

With the Bush War nearing its end Idi Amin fled into exile, claiming that his 1979 ouster would lead to a return to colonialism. Dr Yusuf Lule was chosen to lead the country by the Ugandan National Liberation Front (UNLF), even though he had played only a small role in Amin\u02bcs overthrow.<\/p>\n

However, Lule was to become the definition of interim. He arrived in a Mercedes bearing the British rather than Ugandan flag and retained power for under ten weeks. It was the shortest Presidency ever \u2013 just 68 days.<\/p>\n

Lule was chosen to unite Ugandans \u2013 necessary after Amin. Nevertheless, his Presidency made history for all the wrong reasons, but he almost had a second chance. His Uganda Freedom Fighters joined forces with Yoweri Museveni\u02bcs Popular Resistance Army in 1981 to form the National Resistance Army, but he died shortly afterwards and was succeeded by Museveni who led a five-year long guerrilla campaign.<\/p>\n

Both Milton Obote and Amin before him had confiscated property from Asians and expelled them. Lule refused to reverse this policy. Lule governed through the National Consultative Commission (NCC), but fatally underestimated where real power lay \u2013 Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, Paulo Muwanga, later to become President for a few days and the UNLF.<\/p>\n

Coups <\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Lule tried to usher in reform of the military, which was seen by veterans of the liberation struggle as punishing them. A coup removed him from power in June 1979 and replaced him with Professor Edward Rugumayo, but faced with riots he was rapidly replaced with Godfrey Binaisa.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Lule was exiled to Tanzania, where he was placed under house arrest. He was allowed to leave for treatment in London and finally died there. Almost a year after Lule was overthrown Binaisa suffered the same fate \u2013 the coup that toppled his government was carried out by Muwanga, Museveni, David Oyite-Ojok and Tito Okello.<\/p>\n

The Return of Obote<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Muwanga was installed as President for a few days before the Presidential Commission of Uganda was established. That Commission was chaired by Muwanga and oversaw elections, which gave Nyerere the result that he wanted \u2013 the return of Obote.<\/p>\n

Muwanga declared that Obote had won the elections that were held in December 1980. Museveni did not accept the decision and began a guerrilla war against Obote\u02bcs government. Muwanga would later pay a price for his decision when Museveni toppled Obote\u02bcs second and last administration in 1985. Muwanga was jailed for kidnap. He was released a few months before his subsequent death.<\/p>\n

After announcing the contested result in Obote\u02bcs favour Muwanga became Uganda\u02bcs Vice-President. Sadly, his second coming as President showed that Obote had learned little from the mistakes that plagued his first term and eventually would lead to the same end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (April 20th 2015) The Temporary President With the Bush War nearing its end Idi [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19],"tags":[204,246,209,288,289,217,264,290],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1067"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1067\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}