Election Worries Ramp Up as Uganda’s Ruling Party Seeks to Quash Independents

 Uganda’s ruling party, the National Resistance Movement, is attempting to block potential political candidates from running as independents.

In April, it introduced a requirement for aspiring candidates to sign pledges vowing they won’t run as independents if they lose party primaries set for this week. 

The move is meant to shore up party unity, says Emmanuel Lumala Dombo, the party’s director of information and publicity. Party members need to abide by the results of the primaries, he says, and support members who win. 

“If they plan to stand as an independent, they should not participate in primaries,” says Enoch Barata, the party’s director of legal affairs. He adds that party leadership has already communicated to members what is required of them. “We were lenient last time because we held elections during the COVID period,” Barata says. 

But some worry that the decision by the country’s dominant party could restrict political participation and deepen internal tensions ahead of the elections, in a country where these party primaries are marred by irregularities and where President Yoweri Museveni’s long tenure has left few viable avenues for alternative voices outside the main parties. 

It’s “a recipe for violence,” says Gerald Walulya, a political analyst and senior lecturer in the department of journalism and mass communication at Makerere University. The country’s main parties, the National Resistance Movement and the National Unity Platform, have a history of flawed selection and election processes. Denying NRM members a chance to run as independents will only make things worse, he says. 

Long-standing dominance 

While Uganda has multiple political parties — including the National Unity Platform, the opposition party with the highest number of members in the current Parliament — the National Resistance Movement has dominated the political landscape for nearly four decades. 

Museveni, the party’s national chair, has held power since 1986 and is expected to run for a seventh term in the 2026 general elections. 

In the current Parliament, the party holds 342 elected seats out of 520 — roughly 66%. It also has control of 26 ex officio members appointed by the president. 

Given the party’s dominance, the real battle for many candidates is in these primaries, says Sabiti Makara, a professor in the department of governance at Kabale University.

“If you win [the primaries] there are several benefits,” he says, noting that the political machinery provides logistical and financial support, which increases a candidate’s chances of winning the national elections. 

“The party has cultivated grassroot support. It makes their life much easier,” Makara says. 

Because of this pressure, it’s not uncommon for rival camps to clash during primaries. In the 2016 primaries, Citizen Election Observers Network in Uganda documented numerous cases of intimidation and violence between rival factions within the party. Other election observers and court filings have also documented incidents of violence, irregularities and intimidation during the party primaries. 

Just last week, Tanga Odoi, the party’s electoral commission chairperson, suspended campaigns in Isingiro and Sembabule districts, citing increased violence as one of the reasons. 

And this could worsen because aspirants know they can’t run as independents if they lose. “You make it a do-or-die. [Party members] will invest every effort to make sure they win,” says Walulya, the political analyst. 

But Dombo, the party’s director of information and publicity, says there are measures in place to ensure the primaries are credible. To avoid irregularities, they have cleaned the party register and serialized declaration forms so they can’t be photocopied, which he says has been a problem in past elections. 

A game of numbers 

The constitution allows any eligible Ugandan to run for office with or without party backing. 

But past reforms have tried to make it harder for defectors who want to run as independents. For example, the 2019 Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Bill attempted to introduce restrictions, requiring former party members to have ceased membership for 12 months before they could run as independent candidates. The provision was scrapped before the president signed the bill into law in June 2020. 

Barring candidates from running independently is simply a game of numbers, says Makara, the Kabale University professor. “They know numbers matter, especially in Parliament. Every party wants to come with as many members as possible,” he says. 

The number of independent candidates who win parliamentary seats each election cycle keeps growing. The Eighth Parliament in 2006 had 37 independent members.

In the current Parliament, the number stands at 69, exceeding the National Unity Platform’s 57 seats. 

“They know numbers matter, especially in Parliament. Every party wants to come with as many members as possible.” 

Sabiti Makara 

Professor in the department of governance at Kabale University 

Parties can set internal rules, says Ladislaus Rwakafuzi, a constitutional lawyer. But that doesn’t mean members will stick to them. “If people jump out of agreements like marriage, how about [such] agreements?” 

Some who lose might ignore the rule and still run as independents, he says, and legally the party can’t stop them. “If people vote for you, no one [can] contest against that because you violated party agreements. There [has] to be other grounds,” Rwakafuzi says. 

Julius Mucunguzi is spokesperson for the country’s electoral commission. He says people are free to run as independent candidates. “We shall nominate those who are endorsed by their parties and those who come as independents,” he says. 

After the primaries 

What might come after the primaries worries Muhammad Lusswa Luwemba, president of Independent Minds Association, an association of independent candidates. 

He says in the past, the country’s main parties have had a history of punishing those who jump ship to run independently. It has happened to him and other members of the association, he says. 

In March this year, Luwemba ran in the Kawempe North byelections as an independent candidate. He alleges that his supporters were harassed and beaten and his campaigns disrupted by supporters of his former party, the opposition NUP. Luwemba believes those who defy the ruling NRM party’s agreement are likely to face the same retaliation. 

These concerns come at a time when the United States Agency for International Development, which supported voter education and election monitoring programs in Uganda, has ended its support.

With these checks weakened, the risks are higher, says Francis Opio, head of governance and policy advocacy at Kabarole Research and Resource Center, a local nongovernmental organization that ran election monitoring until USAID ended funding. 

Opio says this new rule risks making independents and their supporters targets for attacks. “There’s no tolerance,” he says. “[It] will create issues.” 

For the party’s strategy to work, candidates have to confirm that they genuinely lost, says Rachel Frances Adyango, a member of the ruling NRM and a two-time contender for the woman member of Parliament for Soroti city. “If I confirm that voters didn’t vote me and I didn’t win, I will step down,” she says. But if there’s evidence that the primaries were rigged, she says it will be difficult for members to respect the requirement. 

The elections will be different this time, says Barata, NRM’s director of legal affairs. “We are confident that we shall have a much fairer election this time around,” he says. 

• Apophia Agiresaasi is a seasoned journalist and a Reporter-in-Residence at Global Press Journal, based in Kampala, Uganda. With over a decade of experience, she specializes in reporting on health and politics, bringing to light the challenges faced by marginalized communities.

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