MUSEVENI, NRM CONFERENCES AND PROTECTING UGANDA’S GAINS OF FORTY YEARS
It has been three months of non-stop political activities in Uganda as the National Resistance Movement (NRM) undertook internal electoral renewal of leaders from the villages to national level that is concluding this coming week with the holding of its National delegates Conference. Hopefully, the vetting will weed out the chaff from the wheat so that NRM restores clean leadership that serves the country purposefully and diligently. NRM last held internal elections in 2015, and skipped 2020 due to the COVID19 global pandemic. The meetings, and conferences began on Wednesday this week with the Central Executive Committee (CEC), its apex organ vetting candidates for national offices including President Yoweri Museveni as presidential flagbearer for the 2026 elections. In open-dirty war, is Speaker Emeritus Rebecca Kadaga, on CEC for two decades seeking to maintain her seat, while the current, Annet Anita Among seem determine to inherit the throne. CEC was followed by the meeting of the National Executive Council (NEC) of eight hundred delegates among them all NRM MPs, NRM and local government Chairpersons and the top leadership at the party Secretariat. Tomorrow 24,845 delegates will swamp Kampala to participate in series of elections to choose national leaders of the eight different leagues comprising Elders, Women, Youths, Persons With Disabilities (PWDs), Workers, Veterans, Entrepreneurs, and Historicals which takes place on Monday. At the conclusion of these elections, the delegates will then participate in the two-day National Conference that will end on 28 August 2025 at Kololo Independence Grounds. These events should provide many opportunities, if not windfall, especially for the middle and lower business communities in Kampala, Mukono and Wakiso as NRM delegates whose pockets will be healthy, courtesy of the party, seek accommodation, food, entertainment, transport, and local tourism. Mid-week, NRM unveiled a new portrait of a younger-looking Yoweri Museveni, that will be used for the forthcoming presidential campaigns. Some critics were quick to jeer and sneer, although in the NRM we shall brush it off as being driven mainly by jealousy of potential political bad-losers. Alongside the presidential candidate’s portrait, NRM also launched its forthcoming election campaign theme “Protecting the Gains,” of the last four decades under President Museveni. Over this period, NRM political activities have dominated the ground, media landscape and opinion narratives, which in public relations practice is good. NRM also now seems to have put aspects of election fiasco neatly behind, especially with non-dramatic ways in which its election tribunal handled and disposed off the hundreds of petitions. And maybe, NRM leaders at the top could start considering overall evaluation of its internal elections, including the possibility of amend its constitution to down size its structure, revert to electoral college, and revert to secret ballot elections. With these elections NRM now has close to three million six hundred leaders countrywide, which, if put to effective use should deliver a credible and convincing electoral victory come 12 January 2026. These numbers could also keep in touch with population, mobilize for better uptake of government programs for socio-economic transformation, supervise and monitor effective implementation, and as well detect and curtail corruption incidences early enough, but alas. NRM, could thus, leave its many opponents and detractors including the opposition parties as mere sulking spectators with no credible direction or agenda of their own, although some of them may soon begin to menacingly swing their hockey butts aimlessly. And of course we look forward in disdain to their self-false pompousness as they seek political validation. Nevertheless, as we look towards the nominations for president and parliament by the Justice Simon Byabakama Mugyenyi Electoral Commission, slated in early October for next year’s general elections, NRM as a vanguard party, holding a revolutionary, liberation, emancipation and transformative agenda, must keep to the high expectations it gave Ugandans when it assumed leadership four decades ago.
By Ofwono Opondo
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