A presidential debate?

At the Sheraton's Rwenzori Ballroom on Wednesday evening, there was a wave of expectation among guests as independent presidential candidate Abed Bwanika and Uganda Peoples Congress leader Miria Obote walked in a few minutes past 8 p.m. If Bwanika was scared about his next challenge, it did not show in his bright eyes. And whether or not Miria's grin was a reflection of her confidence is a debatable affair. In the end there were only two real presidential candidates out of a possible 5: President Yoweri Museveni snubbed the event, and his main challenger, FDC's Kizza Besigye, asked to be represented by his envoy, Beti Kamya. And septuagenarian DP leader Ssebaana Kizito was absent with apology. But the evening's moderator, Mr Gawaya Tegulle, was still not reluctant to call it the first presidential debate in the history of Uganda and East Africa. Miria soon found out that she would answer the maiden question of the evening, and that it would be about how her government would tackle the employment and poverty problems in the country. "I have been around the country and seen poverty...One of the reasons is that the present government destroyed agriculture," she claimed as she decried the collapse of the cooperative movement in Uganda. Often referring to "those days" when the arrangement was "employing a lot of people", Milton Obote's widow said: "Without the cooperative movement, the farmers have nowhere to sell their goods at reasonable prices; they are still at the mercy of middlemen." Bwanika then got his chance to rebut Miria's proposals, and he wasted no time explaining how Museveni's government was losing it on corruption, unbalanced trade, and unnecessary wars in the Great Lakes region. Bwanika called for a rearrangement of priorities, reminding the audience of his so-called 4-way vision. But he risked sounding like Mr Museveni: "I have been around the world. Our pineapples are the sweetest in the world. Our honey is good. We can find market," he said. Really?