In Political Science and Constitutional Law studies, in many countries and political systems in the world, it is possible for a Presidential candidate to win an election while the political party they represent gets the second highest seats in Parliament.

This means that in Uganda, whose electoral system is Presidential than Parliamentary, (meaning that you vote for the President directly than through voting for a party), the party with majority seats in Parliament can lose the Presidential election. This is what has happened.

This is what has happened from 2006, the first "multiparty" election in the country. Kizza Besigye beat Museveni at the polls while Museveni's party, the NRM got more seats in Parliament than Besigye's FDC. Museveni has staged a coup at every election.

The hope and optimism many put in the Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu candidature was based primarily on a desire for a candidate who can do what Besigye had failed to do in the 2006, 2011, and 2016 elections, i.e. reclaim a stolen electoral victory.

In 2011, Besigye and many people including Matthias Mpuuga launched the Walk to Work protests with an intent to reclaim the stolen election, while in 2016, he through the People's Government and the Defiance ideological line intended to do the same. It is now called Plan B.

Plan B is about People Power, how do you undo the theft of an election? If you do not reclaim the presidential election from the dictator, the party "naturally" gets divided between those committed to removing dictatorship and those serving in Parliament as the opposition.

FDC for the last 15 years is an example of the ideological fracture, between well-paid politicians who form the parliamentary party, under the Leader of Opposition, POA renamed that position to minority leader, and the revolutionary workers in the party under the party president.

It is a contradiction that weakens the revolutionary forces. the salary and perks that people get as MPs, even if on the opposition side greatly weaken and demoralize struggle-workers who do not occupy any office. No wonder, Museveni keeps buying these politicians off.

For those who have been elected as MPs, how do you work as the "opposition" while fighting to remove the dictatorship? It is a very big contradiction that requires wisdom and superior strategy to resolve. Bobi won the election, NUP MPs are the government side in parliament.

NUP MPs accepting "opposition" roles is betrayal of the revolution by ballot, we can use euphemisms around it, but it is what it is. It is a contradiction that led to the splitting of FDC, in fact. How to reclaim a stolen presidential victory is NUP's biggest challenge now.

The radical (and this is nobody in the decades of fighting the Museveni dictatorship) of the elected NUP MPs would denounce their victory on the sound ideological principle that if Bobi is not president, they can't be MPs, their only seat in Parliament is the government side.

This crisis of Museveni stealing the presidential election, and then obviously covertly and overtly working to buy off those elected as MPs on opposition parties' tickets, especially that of the winning presidential candidate, is perhaps the biggest crisis in the struggle.

Principled revolutionary politics would require from elected NUP MPs a boycott of Parliament, as long as Bobi is not President, as the true election results show. That is what turning an election into a revolution means.

Taking up seats in Parliament while Museveni is in office is betrayal of the revolution. It is what it is.

Obviously, the mark of leadership is the ability to resolve difficult contradictions, to steer a people, a country, in times of crisis. NUP and People Power, lead us.

The people, are after all not just analysts, or bystanders, they are active participants in struggle. The radical / revolutionary ones insist that the whole system needs to go. The reformist / moderate ones lie to themselves that they can fight from within the system.

NUP and the MPs elected on its ticket can choose revolution or reformism. Bobi as the leader of the party obviously will guide what will happen. FDC provides very important lessons. We could go back to DP as a parliamentary opposition party during the 1980-1985 period, too.