Musaazi Namiti
Politicians attending church normally occupy front seats. The church needs them at least to demonstrate that some of its own members call the shots and are VIPs. And the politicians need the church for their politics. It is a symbiotic relationship.
So, last Sunday at a church service in Rubaga to mark Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi’s 70th birthday, Mr Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, aka Bobi Wine, the president of the National Unity Platform (NUP), was one of the prominent politicians on the pews.
There was also Mr Mathias Mpuuga and Capt Francis Babu, a former Cabinet minister and senior member of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM).
Of the three, Mr Kyagulanyi is the youngest and best-known politician. He is a former presidential candidate and announced on a recent visit to the UK — the Guardian reported the story — that he would challenge Mr Museveni one more time in the 2026 presidential election.
According to video clips circulating on social media, Mr Kyagulanyi arrived after Mr Mpuuga and sat beside him.
But the two men are political enemies, and the smiles they flashed masked the real feelings — the hard feelings — they have towards each other. NUP and its leaders have never forgiven Mr Mpuuga, who was the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament (LoP) before Joel Ssenyonyi took over, for accepting Sh500m from Parliament, dubbed a service award, and failing to come clean about it.
At Sunday’s service, the cameras were on the two politicians. Then the priest who led the service turned to Mr Kyagulanyi to recognise his presence as the leader of the country’s leading Opposition party. He said nothing about Mr Mpuuga and Capt Babu.
The congregation erupted in wild cheers. They cheered as Mr Kyagulanyi rose from the pew to greet Kabaka Mutebi’s wife, Sylvia Nnaginda, who was seated a few metres away. (Her husband was absent.) Mr Kyagulanyi’s popularity was on full display. Meanwhile, Mr Mpuuga smiled sheepishly and seemed to be shifting uneasily on the pew.
The priest brought the writing on the wall closer to people’s eyes. The Catholic Church is solidly behind Mr Kyagulanyi. And the same can be said of Buganda. Mr Mpuuga has tried to mobilise other politicians in what he says is a campaign to fix Uganda’s politics. But he seems to have a trust problem.
NUP supporters think he is working with the NRM while pretending to be an Opposition politician. Although it is said that in politics there are no permanent enemies but only permanent interests, it is highly unlikely that Mr Mpuuga will go back to NUP.
Forming a new political party to rival NUP is an option. But Mr Mpuuga would struggle to have a party with a broad appeal beyond his constituency in Nyendo-Mukungwe. It would have supporters in the constituency and surrounding areas but certainly not countrywide.
Parties can be difficult to build in the same way as start-ups. At the peak of his political career, former Cabinet minister Bidandi Ssali was more famous than Mr Mpuuga.
He launched the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) and ran for president in 2011 but finished with just 34,688 votes against 5,428,369 for Mr Museveni, who was re-elected. The PPP remains obscure, known by Mr Bidandi Ssali and a few people who have worked for it. To its credit, it won a seat in Parliament in 2021.
Mr Asuman Basalirwa’s Jeema has been around for decades but has only one MP, Mr Basalirwa himself. Mr Michael Mabikke’s Social Democratic Party is barely known. Former presidential candidate Joseph Kabuleta’s National Economic Empowerment Dialogue (NEED), just like Mabikke’s SDP, has no parliamentary representation and so does the Alliance for National Transformation (ANT), led by Gen Mugisha Muntu. Mr Mpuuga will need more than luck and Sh500m to succeed.
Mr Musaazi Namiti is a journalist and former
Al Jazeera digital editor in charge of the Africa desk
