Anti-homosexuality law will be weaponised in 2026 election – experts

Uganda’s Constitutional Court on April 3 elected not to annul or suspend the Anti-Homosexuality Act that includes the death penalty for certain same-sex acts, but voided some provisions that it viewed as inconsistent with certain fundamental human rights.

The law, which was assented to in May 2023, is viewed to be among the harshest anti-gay laws and has drawn condemnation from rights campaigners and sanctions from Western nations.

But in a country whose electorate largely views the practice as part of an immoral and repugnant practice transplanted from the West, the subject of homosexuality in Uganda has elicited a combustible cultural clash pitting a large ultra-conservative faith-leaning electorate against rights practitioners. 

Critics fear that homosexuality could be weaponised against the Opposition ahead of the 2026 General Election as fears grow that the campaigns could veer off an issue-based campaign and pander towards the politics of slander and nitpicking as major issues such as abject poverty, soaring unemployment, ailing hospital infrastructure and rising taxes, among others, will be placed on the back-burner.

Mwambutsya Ndebesa, a political historian who has taught at Makerere University, says when homosexuality “becomes a political weapon and becomes a campaign issue, it goes into the public sphere, it becomes a discussion point and even diverts attention from the real issue of development and bad governance”.

He adds: “They can weaponise it in such a manner that the ruling is done towards elections and fuel emotions and sentiments. It is an issue that I see will continue to be weaponised. We have seen the Speaker [of Parliament] using it as a scapegoat to avoid accountability. It is not about human rights per se, it is about pulling down each other.”

Mwambutsya says politicians will frame this subject as extremely pernicious, which poses an existential threat to the moral fabric of the country.

Political mileage
The recent Parliament exhibition’s on the microblogging site X, which captured public imagination after it exposed allegations of corruption and profligacy of the National Assembly, is instructive. 

To fend off rising public antipathy and concerns raised by the Leader of Opposition, Joel Ssenyonyi, Speaker Anita Among, told the House that the campaign to ‘malign’ Parliament and her character, was sponsored by homosexuals.

“I will never give you an answer based on hearsay or rumour-mongering and we are not going to run this House on rumour-mongering. Me to answer you on rumour-mongering on things you have cooked on social media because I have said no to bum shafting, I will not,” she told the plenary.

President Museveni later came to the defence of the Speaker, claiming that those behind the Parliament exhibition “are not mistake makers but outright traitors working for wrong foreigners like homosexuals and imperialists. How can you talk so much on social media about Anita Among instead of those traitors? I’m getting intelligence and we’re going to expose those traitors”.

Nicholas Opiyo, who is a human rights lawyer and was among the petitioners at the Constitutional Court, tells Sunday Monitor that it is fashionable for leaders to frame homosexuality as a major election campaign theme. 

“President Museveni accused his longtime friend and Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi of being funded by homosexuals. In the last election they did everything possible to paint People Power and Bobi Wine as a homosexual-driven group. So, the narrative about the LGBTQI community in this country is not just a legal issue, it is also a deeply-political issue. As President Museveni has shown, it is used to go after your opponents because you want to paint your opponents in bad light knowing how the population feels about this issue,” he says.

Opiyo says homosexuality has been used to deflect the spotlight on important subjects such as corruption. 

“It has also become a diversion each time there is deep scrutiny of our institutions, people spring up allegations of homosexuals, a very small tiny minority in this country. That they are behind, for example, the scandal in Parliament. That it is being paid for by LGBTQI folks. He [Bobi Wine] gave a BBC interview where he was confronted about this issue and where he said some things where he left people more upset than clarify his position on these matters so that if he speaks [again] perhaps, he will speak with more clarity,” he adds.

Opiyo says for the sake of political survival, politicians cannot be ambiguous on the subject of homosexuality. 

“It is a case of you are damned if you do, damned if you don’t. If you want to be very clear about this issue, you can only survive politically, you can only survive if you take the side of those who hate LGBTQI folks. But if you want to be clear on you stand defending the fundamental rights of LGBTQI persons in Uganda it is going to be tough for you.”

Youth vote
However, Opiyo believes that as the country heads into the next election, the LGBTQI issue will gradually dissipate and other issues that are pressing Ugandans every single day will become the main themes of discussion. 

“Bobi Wine will be able to maintain that wave among the young people even though he loses some because he is going to be painted as a pro-gay candidate. Because I don’t think the gay people in this country are the problem we have in this country and the reason why we don’t have good schools, why we don’t have drugs in hospitals?” he says.

He also says the sticky issue of succession will stick out like a sore thumb in the 2026 presidential election. 

“When we go into elections, these issues are going to be much more prominent. But don’t forget we are going into the sunset years of President Museveni so the question of transition is going to be a really important topic. Is the NRM, or President Museveni, preparing this country for transition or is he going to risk implosion, ethnic tension and violence by hanging on to power much longer than people think he should? Those questions I think will become more important and prominent to the vast majority of Ugandans than the question of LGBTQI,” Opiyo says.

Opiyo adds that the law could be used as a sieve to determine not only the presidential election but across constituencies. 

“Hon Fox Odoi came back [to Parliament] by sheer luck. I think he is going to face this issue when he goes back to his constituency. I can tell ever since these matters went to court, he has never been able to go back to his constituency. There is a real political cost for anybody who stands in defence of the LGBTQI community and the only way to survive is to be ambiguous. But ambiguity doesn’t help you as well with development partners who want clarity on these issues,” he opines.

Yusuf Serunkuma, a researcher and lecturer on cultural and literary studies, based in Germany, says candidates who receive donations and support from Western liberal democracies will find it difficult to navigate the subject of homosexuality, which will be drummed up as a major campaign slogan. 

Weaponisation
During a BBC interview in December 2023, Bobi Wine claimed that the anti-homosexuality law was enacted and supported by some lawmakers within his NUP Party who “work with Gen Museveni?” to target the Opposition and crackdown anyone perceived to be friendly to the gay community.

“The biggest elephant in the room is how do you respond to the homosexuality question and Bobi Wine has no response, because to respond explicitly to resonate with the constituency at home would damage his standing with the international community. He doesn’t want to do that and Abed Bwanika [Kimanya-Kabonera County MP] fully understands that and is ready to school him that if you attacked our constituency over money, we have so much we can push back and we are ready to use homosexuality as a weapon to fight back,” argues Serunkuma.

Serunkuma says the smear-campaign is part of the playbook in Uganda’s politics.

“One of the things politicians try to do is to gaslight their Opposition. It is how to overwhelm them with rumours and gossip about them. For example, when one candidate stood for the position of mayor in Kampala, one of the ‘chemicals’ thrown at him was that he was gay and it worked quite successfully. One of the chemicals Ugandan politicians use and it is not limited to Museveni and the Opposition, even among the Opposition as we are seeing right now with Abed Bwanika using it. So, it is a chemical that is available to politicians to use. You can throw it at any politician you dislike and say they are pro-homosexuality and that will damage their standing locally,” he says.

Serunkuma says the subject of homosexuality and the attendant cultural debate and clash could pit the West against countries like Uganda, which has for long been viewed as an erstwhile point-man of the West in the volatile Great Lakes. 

With a deficit budget and soaring debt nearing distress, the West and policy wonks at the United States State Department in Washington will likely use the subject of homosexuality to reshape foreign policy and roll out stringent conditions to give aid and grants to poor countries like Uganda. 

“And one of the cultural debates of our time is where a politician stands on the issue of sexual minorities. It is a question not only being discussed in Uganda but it’s being discussed in Europe and other places. [...] To appear to be winning the cultural war, you have to find a battle-ground and the battleground is Uganda,” Serunkuma opines.