Museveni to pick party nomination forms as he seeks to contest for seventh term
President Museveni. PHOTO/ PPU
What you need to know:
- With another electioneering season around the corner, many fear the worst is yet to happen, with threats of violence frequently issued from security circles.
President Museveni is expected to pick expression of interest forms at the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) headquarters in Kampala on June 28, 2025, as he seeks to run for his seventh term in the 2026 polls.
His party’s electoral commission chief, Mr Tanga Odoi told journalists in Kampala on Monday, June 23, that Mr Museveni who has been in power for nearly four decades, will pick the expression of interest forms as he seeks to retain the position of the chairperson of the NRM Central Executive Committee and the party's presidential flag bearer in the next general election.
Mr Odoi further said all the CEC aspirants will thereafter undergo nomination on July 4.
“I want to take this opportunity to notify all the party members that the president will himself pick the nomination forms for party chairman and to contest if given a chance for party presidential flag bearer for the 2026 elections,”Mr Odoi said.
Mr Museveni, who is expected to celebrate his 81st birthday in September this year, has been in power since 1986 when he shot his way to State House after a five-year guerrilla warfare.
He has been credited for promoting peace and stability in the East African nation, which previously witnessed several civil wars that left the economy in shambles.
However, his critics say the peace for the country and security of the citizens which was once the cornerstone and selling point of his government, is fast melting away like glaciers on the approach of the summer heat.
With another electioneering season around the corner, many fear the worst is yet to happen, with threats of violence frequently issued from security circles. Such extreme state-sponsored violence is the new normal, usually justified and defended or accompanied by winding promises of investigations and accountability or by silence by those in charge.
Uganda, which has one of the youngest populations globally, with over 78% of its population under 30 and a median age of 16.9 years has never witnessed a peaceful transfer of power from one president to another.
Pop star-turned-politician, Mr Robert Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine, Uganda's biggest opposition figure and leader of the opposition National Unity Platform (NUP), is preparing to challenge Mr Museveni for the second time in next year's election.
Mr Kyagulanyi has accused Mr Museveni’s regime of enforced disappearances and using state machinery to torture his supporters and other opposition members.
In the 2021 presidential polls, the country’s electoral commission declared Mr Museveni winner with 5.85 million votes, or 58.64 per cent, of the total votes cast, while Mr Kyagulanyi got 3.48 million votes or 34.83 per cent.
The voter turnout was 52 percent.
Mr Museveni who was 76 at the time campaigned for a sixth term, arguing his long experience in office makes him a good leader while promising to keep delivering stability and progress while Mr Kyagulanyi who was 38 at the time galvanised young Ugandans with his calls for political change and pledged to end what he’s been calling dictatorship and widespread corruption.
