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Is the Opposition shooting self in the foot before 2026?

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Kampala Central MP Muhammad Nsereko (left) and his Nyendo-Mukungwe counterpart Mathias Mpuuga during the official launch of the Democratic Front party in Masaka City on  June 27, 2025. PHOTO/ FILE

Officials from the newly formed People’s Front for Freedom (PFF), who have been visiting an incarcerated Dr Kizza Besigye facing treason charges, say his biggest worry as Uganda heads into next year’s elections is how the ruling National Resistance Movement has managed to orchestrate divisions within the Opposition. 

Dr Besigye, according to sources who have confided in this writer, has been in conversations with PFF officials, including Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, the Kira Municipality legislator; Proscovia Salaamu Musumba; and Erias Lukwago, the Kampala Lord Mayor, with his concern being that Museveni and the National Resistance Movement (NRM) are orchestrating fights within the Opposition. 

“Dr Besigye insists the conflicts between and within parties are constructed by Museveni and the state because that makes his work very easy,” a source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. 



This stems from the fact that within a couple of months, besides PFF, several Opposition parties have popped up, including the Democratic Front (DF) led by Mathias Mpuuga, the Nyendo-Mukungwe legislator, and the Ecological Party led by Muhammad Nsereko, Kampala Central legislator. At the time when the Opposition is expected to direct guns at the NRM, the electorate has been treated to the spectacle of the DF and Ecological Party directing guns at the National Unity Platform (NUP), the largest Opposition party. 

The animosity these new parties have against NUP was on full display last week when Mr Mpuuga launched his DF in the central city of Masaka, seen as a NUP bastion. In what seems to be a well-organised attempt to cut NUP to size, Mr Mpuuga invited Mr Nsereko to give a keynote address. This was a chance for Mr Nsereko to display the grievances he had against NUP following the 2021 election in which the nascent political party, through Mr Fred Nyanzi Ssentamu, the elder brother of NUP principal Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, nearly ended his tenure in the House. 

Though Mr Nsereko emerged victorious with a difference of 1,023 votes, Mr Nyanzi took the fight to court. This turned into a protracted fight after Mr Nsereko went undercover in an effort to frustrate his opponent’s effort to serve him court papers. The case was first dismissed by the High Court, citing Nyanzi’s failure to serve Mr Nsereko, who has been in Parliament since 2011. 

The Court of Appeal, following Mr Nyanzi’s appeal, ordered a retrial in the High Court, which eventually dismissed the case on the grounds that Mr Nyanzi had failed to prove that Mr Nsereko’s victory was a result of fraud. Although Mr Nsereko stood as an Independent, NUP supporters insisted or still insist he is an NRM mole and thus his victory was worked in the military stations located in Summit View, but still this wasn’t proven in court.

Mr Nsereko blooper?

When his victory was cleared by the court, Mr Nsereko aggravated his relationship with NUP supporters when he spearheaded amendments in the Computer Misuse Act, introducing aspects such as hate speech wherein a person convicted can be sentenced to about seven years in prison.

 The notion that Mr Nsereko is an NRM mole was supported by the fact that his amendments weren’t only accelerated through the processes of Parliament with the help of Speaker Anita Annet Among, but also, they were only backed by the ruling party legislators. 

“Honourable members, I can hear some of you saying you are going to court. If you want to go to court, please go. Let’s create work for the court,” Ms Among said. Unlike those who represent rural constituencies that largely don’t follow the debates in Parliament and how they affect them, Mr Nsereko, who represents Kampala’s central district, faced an online onslaught, and he knew if he stood again, he would probably be humiliated by a NUP candidate.

Sources familiar with Mr Nsereko, who was once part of the rebel MP clique within the NRM, say he wanted to leave the scene in Kampala Central on his terms, thus he came up with a narrative that this term was his last because he had agreed with constituents that he would serve for only three terms. 


Opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye at Buganda Road Court on February 14, 2025. Officials from the People's Front for Freedom say Dr Besigye's biggest worry as Uganda heads into next year's elections is how the ruling National Resistance Movement has managed to orchestrate divisions within the Opposition. PHOTO/FILE

Yet a few months after he was elected the president of the Ecological Party, giving him a chance to stand for President, Mr Nsereko used the DF platform to rekindle his grievances with NUP and its principal, Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine. Mr Nsereko said Mr Mpuuga, who officially parted ways with NUP last year after it emerged that he had received Shs500m in what was termed a service award, was just witch-hunted because, as the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament (LoP), he had given alternative leadership.

Mr Nsereko claimed that what annoyed the NUP leadership was the fact that Mpuuga had put his foot down that Parliament can’t proceed unless the State releases several NUP supporters, who had been abducted and two Opposition legislators—Mr Allan Ssewanyana (Makindye West) and now the deceased Muhammad Ssegirinya (Kawempe North). 

Mr Nsereko spited NUP by invoking the fight its foot soldiers put up earlier this year to ensure Ssegirinya’s death was seen as being a result of an unjust incarceration the State had masterminded. Thus, they wouldn’t allow it to have a hand in his burial. This was taken as a slap in Mr Mpuuga’s face, who had been selected by Parliament to take a lead role in the burial arrangements. Mr Mpuuga took it from Mr Nsereko, apportioning blame not to either the NUP leadership or the NRM for what he called abandoning NUP supporters incarcerated in many prisons across the country. 

“My team and I have made several attempts to rescue our sons who are rotting in prison, but every time we have tried, we have met resistance,” Mr Mpuuga said. “What kind of commander abandons his troops for years, simply because of arrogance?” 

The NUP detainees include Edward Ssebuufu, alias Eddie Mutwe, whose torture was reportedly superintended by President Museveni’s son, Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the Chief of Defence Forces (CDF). Mutwe, together with other NUP foot soldiers—Gaddafi Mugumya, Achilleo Kivumbi, and Grace Wakabi, who form the nucleus of Bobi Wine’s security detail—face charges of aggravated robbery and assaulting journalists.

The trio insists the charges are politically motivated. A dozen NUP supporters are detained in Masaka for attending a football game that, apparently, police claimed hadn’t been cleared. Mr Joel Ssenyonyi, who replaced Mr Mpuuga as the LoP, responded to Mpuuga’s claims, saying he directed his anger to the wrong people. “We don’t need rhetoric. We need action. These people have suffered long enough. We have a Judiciary that hasn’t allocated enough judges to Masaka. Our people haven’t been given hearing dates for their bail applications. This is a deliberate effort to keep them languishing in jail,” Mr Ssenyonyi said. 


The enemy within

DF officials such as Mr Moses Kasibante, who was selected as the party’s spokesperson, have made it clear that they intend to target NUP strongholds such as the Greater Masaka area. 

“Within the few months, we have been able to mobilise Masaka, you wonder what we shall be able to do in the coming months,” Mr Kasibante said. Mr Kasibante, just like many members of the DF, has a bone to pick with NUP. In 2020, having served as Rubaga North legislator for two terms, he joined NUP. Mr Kasibante was, however, denied a ticket, forcing him to stand—for the third time in a row—as an Independent. 

NUP’s Abubaker Kawalya, however, emerged victorious. For some time, it seemed Mr Kasibante had retired from elective politics, but, when the fallout between Mr Mpuuga and NUP leadership became obvious, he started taking media interviews.

He also started currying favour with Mr Mpuuga. Another anti-NUP person that DF has mobilised is Mr Abed Bwanika. Though for most of this term, Mr Bwanika, who represents Kimaanya-Kabonera in Masaka District, has been at loggerheads with NUP leadership. He has accused the party’s top brass of supporting homosexuality, among other things. Mr Bwanika recently revealed that he quit NUP because the delegates' conference was held without even inviting the media. He has also accused NUP of sidelining what he termed as experienced leaders. 

“We gave NUP an opportunity to benefit from our knowledge and capabilities, but we realised that there is no space for us,” Mpuuga said. 

What explains this standoff, according to Mr Ssemujju, the PFF’s spokesperson, is the fact that people within the Opposition aren’t making any effort to expand the map.

“When you look at them, they are fighting for places that are ordinarily voted for by the Opposition. I don’t see any efforts to attack areas that are dominated by the NRM. That’s where I see the problem,” he said. Mr Ssemujju also told Sunday Monitor that the DF could be miscalculating in directing its guns towards NUP. “You know I have been attacked by NUP people, but I just take it as a temporary thing. I really get shocked by some of our colleagues who wake up every day to attack NUP. Yet we have an enemy in Museveni. That’s where we, as PFF, are focusing our attention. Not NUP,” he said. 

Mr Ssemujju, who has been in Parliament since 2011, is facing NUP’s George Musisi in the race for Kira Municipality MP seat. It is widely expected that this contest will further divide the Opposition.


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