The outcome of 2026 elections

How Museveni is going to shock many by recapturing Buganda and Busoga from Bobi Wine while keeping the West and North

THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Less than a week from now we shall hold an election that will depress many Ugandans, especially those in the opposition. From opinion polls and personal observations, leading opposition presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi (hereinafter referred to by his stage name, Bobi Wine) is likely to get fewer votes than he did five years ago. President Yoweri Museveni is likely to increase his share of votes in Buganda (or the central region) and Busoga (southeastern Uganda), the most populous electoral regions of Uganda.

How did we come to this, we must ask? Museveni is now 81 years old, exhausted both physically and intellectually. The ability of government to perform basic state functions such as road maintenance, electricity supply, traffic policing, garbage collection, crime control, etc. has considerably declined. His own campaign strapline does not offer any glimpse to the future but promises to protect past gains. The entire machinery of government is characterised by chronic incompetence, corruption, foot-dragging, apathy, laziness, indifference, etc. How can such a government continue to secure electoral victory in the face of such incompetence?

It is here that Bobi Wine and his supporters have failed the country. First, Bobi Wine’s campaign lacks imagination. Rather than offer an alternative future, he has followed the path long trodden by Dr Kizza Besigye, where he focuses on whipping up grievances by the state against him personally and his followers generally. So, he complains that they are being beaten and jailed. This may win him sympathy from some people, but it does not provide a reason as to why someone should show up to vote for him. The vast majority of Ugandans are not being arrested or beaten.

Secondly, Bobi Wine’s major campaign themes are a list of grievances dear to him and the opposition: corruption, limitations on democracy, human rights abuses, etc. But these may be emotive issues for him and those closest to him. However, they do not address the existential issues that most Ugandans face: lack of jobs and opportunities. The failure to provide a well-reasoned alternative agenda for those Ugandans looking for jobs and other opportunities means that Bobi Wine has largely been preaching to the converted. Yet the challenge he faces is how to win over fence-sitters.

This brings us back to Museveni and his NRM. While they have proved to be grossly incompetent, corrupt, selfish, sluggish, apathetic and even indifferent in their administration of the country, they have exhibited extraordinary capabilities to manipulate voters to their advantage. In my road trips across the country, I have been impressed by how their Parish Development Model (DPM) has been effective in making them improve their standing in rural and even urban communities. Many people have received these funds and used them well to improve their economic circumstances. Many others saw them as gifts to use as they wished: so, they paid school fees, married a second wife, enjoyed beer at the local bar, etc. For these people, government is concerned about their welfare.

Thus, if you drive through Buganda and Busoga, the two regions where Bobi Wine defeated Museveni in the last election, you notice a change in people’s perceptions of the two leaders. The enthusiasm about Bobi Wine has diminished. The novelty effect he had in 2021 is gone. The faith that he had a chance to win has melted away. The enthusiasm in his candidature has waned. And he has done little or nothing to reinvent himself in these changed circumstances. Instead, he is running the 2026 campaign exactly the same way he did in 2021. Ask his followers what they learnt from 2021, and they will say in chorus that Museveni stole their vote.

And this brings me to the biggest challenge the opposition faces. They have boxed themselves into the belief that they win elections and that Museveni steals their votes. This mentality may be emotionally helpful in that it gives psychological satisfaction that their efforts were not in vain. But it has had a corrosive effect on their ability to change tactics and their message. Content that the population is behind them and that the only thing between them and power is Museveni’s theft of their votes, they have become merchants of grievance with little desire to change their strategy, tactics and message. This has been fatal to their political fortunes.

There is no doubt that Bobi Wine faces many unfair obstacles in his campaigning. Museveni uses the state’s power to his own advantage. He uses the economic resources of the state to rally support. He uses the communication instruments of the state to sell his message while at the same time blocking Bobi Wine from accessing private media channels to sell his. And where Museveni cannot contain Bobi Wine, he employs the state’s instruments of repression and coercion, such as the police and the army, to harass Bobi Wine and his supporters. Therefore, this is not a free and fair election. But his is neither new nor novel. Bobi Wine and his supporters would be naïve or even stupid to say they did not know this or foresee it.

The challenge for the opposition in Uganda under the presidency of Museveni has always been how to win in spite of, or even because of, these impediments. Why? Because these obstructions are a permanent feature of our elections, the opposition have to integrate them into their strategy and tactics and see how to dodge some, exploit others and live with the rest. It does not make sense to make the same complaints for 35 years and not learn and therefore invent anything new. Besides, it is clear that these obstructions are not ironclad. Museveni used to lose in northern Uganda in spite of these advantages. Now he wins there. What changed? Museveni used to win in Buganda and Busoga, but in 2021 he lost. How did this happen?

It is ironic that it is Museveni, both old and tired, who has innovated new ways to win back Buganda and Busoga, yet the young and much more dynamic Bobi Wine has done little or nothing to reinvent himself. This may also be the last election that Bobi Wine runs because once he fails this year, new faces will emerge and take the mantle from him. One hopes that after so many years, the opposition finds a leader or leaders able to think differently because it is only with a strong opposition that NRM itself can improve its performance.

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amwenda@ugindependent.co.ug

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