We are still not sure whether Richard Kaijuka still believes in what he said 18 years ago, in as far as uprooting the NRM is concerned.

If he does, then his colleagues in the opposition Forum for Democratic Change need to be afraid. In 1995, Kaijuka, while still minister of Trade and Industry, told The Monitor that NRM was there to stay for a long time because no other political organization could uproot it.

He was responding to a question as to whether he believed that if parties were allowed to operate, NRM's stranglehold on political power would come under threat.

"They have absolutely no chance because you uproot what is not rooted...you uproot a tree which is shaken but we in NRM are so rooted," Kaijuka said in an interview with The Monitor in December 1995.

He said the reason he liked the NRM was that it was led by a strong president, Yoweri Museveni. In the late 1990s, Kaijuka served as minister of Energy before leaving to work for the World Bank.

In 2005, he officially crossed to the Forum for Democratic Change, which he believes, and at that time he said, he was confident would defeat the NRM during the 2006 elections. FDC's win did not come and it was the same story in the 2011 elections. Kaijuka has since become less active politically and retreated to business.