Bobi Wine lonely in opposition

Bobi Wine at a rally on nomination day

 NUP faces its biggest test yet as other parties fizzle out

COVER STORY | IAN KATUSIIME | Shortly after 11am on a day filled with anticipation on Sept. 24, Robert Kyagulanyi and his wife Barbie Kyagulanyi stood on the steps of their mansion in Magere village, on the north-side outskirts of Kampala City, to address a phalanx of photojournalists.

Dressed in a crisp black suit and red tie, and Barbie in a white suit dress with a red hat, the theme of their attire was unmistakable. It was Kyagulanyi’s nomination for the 2026 presidential election on his National Unity Platform (NUP) flag.

Soon after, the couple drove off southwards in a loud convoy of cars carrying supporters and party officials to Lweza off Entebbe Road which was the gazetted nomination grounds by the Electoral Commission venue. All along the way, Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine kept waving to cheering supporters along the road.

His entourage made a stopover at Kavule, the headquarters and political home of NUP; the organisation that has catapulted Kyagulanyi’s People Power Movement into a formidable political force in Uganda.

The stopover was symbolic; five years ago the party had no headquarters and the Kavule which boasts multi-structured buildings, offices, and vast open spaces for party activities—constructed two years ago—is testament to the party’s growth and mobilisation efforts in a brutally repressive environment.

Kyagulanyi was accompanied by party officials like Joel Ssenyonyi, Leader of Opposition and party spokesman; John Nambeshe, the party vice president for eastern Uganda; Muwanga Kivummbi, the vice president for central region, and others.

Lewis Rubongoya, NUP secretary general, was awaiting them at Lweza. He had been working tirelessly to ensure the nomination process works out smoothly. Days earlier, the Electoral Commission (EC) had swung Bobi Wine a surprise by announcing that the names of seconders for his nomination were insufficient and the party had scrambled to fill the alleged gaps.

The nomination event at the EC grounds was a hive of activity with candidates, new and old present, to formalise their bids. Bobi Wine made his way to the venue and was eventually nominated.

After the EC chairman Simon Byabakama presented Bobi Wine his certificate, the president of NUP kicked off his second stab at the highest office in the land. In a rain-drenched speech, 43-year-old Bobi Wine had a lot of reassurances to make.

“Many of you are asking. Why do we risk the teargas, the bullets, the prisons, the torture chambers, the death, and all the mess that is awaiting us? My answer to you is this; We risk it all because the alternative is giving up and that is ten times worse,” Bobi Wine said as Olivia Lutaaya, a poster child of NUP political prisoners, held the umbrella for him.

“If we surrender now, that means the fighting spirit of Rita Nabukenya, Frank Sentenza, Yasin Kawuma, and many others has been defeated. It means they died in vain. It means betrayal of the comrades who have spent years in prison counting on us who still have our little freedom to continue fighting for their freedom.”

Bobi and Barbie Kyagulanyi in a convoy.

This was the second time he was being nominated as a presidential candidate after the 2021 election. It was another milestone in the political career of Bobi Wine who a four-year old infant when incumbent president, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni came to power in 1986.

In the 2026 election, Bobi will take on President Museveni in a race that has eight candidates all being men. The other known candidates are Nandala Mafabi of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) and Mugisha Muntu of the Alliance for National Transformation (ANT). Elton John Mabirizi who contested in the 2016 election and made a remarkable entrance at the presidential debate is back. But it was Bobi Wine who hogged the attention on the second day.

For Museveni who had been nominated a day earlier, it was the seventh time he was doing it. He had his first formal nomination in 1996 ten years after he captured power following a guerilla war.

Bobi Wine was just a fourteen year old with probably a passing knowledge of the political events at the time. A generation later, the singer-turned-politician is Museveni’s toughest opponent with the differences between the two leading candidates hard to miss.

Cushioned by longevity in power but with visible fatigue at 81, Museveni is still not resting on his laurels and he has eyes firmly on the campaign trail. Commentators say Museveni’s campaign war chest could stretch to half a trillion shillings to counter an opponent whose campaign infrastructure—at home and abroad—has shown resilience in the face of adversity.

A horde of NUP supporters had already gathered in Nateete where Bobi Wine later addressed his first rally. Thousands of supporters had thronged the area to embark on another election campaign with Bobi Wine at the centre of it all.

Fear and tension

The election is rife with fear and tension because of who Bobi Wine and NUP are up against: an entrenched state marking 40 years in power and not willing to give up a single ounce of it.

Bobi Wine is also faces former colleagues in the opposition trenches like Norbert Mao, minister of justice and constitutional affairs, who have crossed to Museveni’s side and are already ingrained in the methods of the ruling party, the National Resistance Movement (NRM).

NUP supporters gathered at Nateete for Bobi Wine’s first rally (NUP)

Speaking recently at a press conference after a summit of Inter Party Organisation for Dialogue (IPOD) where NRM and a string of opposition parties converged ahead of the election campaign with Museveni as convener, Mao took veiled swipes at Bobi Wine.

Mao said the next election will be the “quietest” in Uganda. “Those who don’t want it to be quiet will be made quiet,” Mao said.

“In Uganda, there are two blocs; one bloc has the NRM, DP, UPC, FDC, DF; The Group of Five. The other bloc that does not believe in cooperation; the regime change fundamentalists…That group is very poisonous and there is the need to remove the poison in their politics; they cannot be trusted with power.”

His utterances led some commentators to say Mao didn’t sound like a justice minister but a police chief commandeering a military operation against the opposition.

Mao has adopted Museveni’s talking points and speech mannerisms since he joined the cabinet in 2022. He is serving as the regime’s unofficial spokesperson as the country gears up for the next general election.

Ironically, Mao is also the president general of an opposition, the Democratic Party (DP). In spite of picking nomination forms on the back of earlier rhetoric that he would challenge Museveni in the 2026 presidential race, Mao who has contested before and flopped is sitting it out this time.

Mao’s switch of allegiance reflects a wider state of opposition political disequilibrium in the country ahead of the 2026 elections.

Uganda is usually driven to the brink in election time. But Mao’s comments are a reflection of the raised currents playing out in the election this time. Mao’s capitulation and that of other former opposition stalwarts has raised fears on what lies ahead for the opposition sides, especially NUP.

The minister’s statement can be used as a measure of the battle lines already drawn and the isolation of NUP.

Bobi Wine described Mao as the “despot’s loudest henchman” and Mao looks like he relishes the role given by how unfazed he was as he lumped his party DP and the other faded opposition parties alongside the ruling party.

For NUP, the road to the 2026 presidential election is less of a campaign trail and more of a minefield. With the specter of intensified state repression through arrests and brutal crackdowns on supporters, the coming vote is fraught with uncertainty and Ugandans are already on edge well aware of what happens in an election.

A number of NUP figures are languishing in jail. Bobi’s bodyguard Eddie Mutwe was arrested in April and hauled into a basement where he was tortured under the orders of the Chief of Defence Forces Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba.

There are others; Achileo Kivumbi, Bobi Giant, Bobi Giant NUP deputy spokesperson Waiswa Mufumbiro, NUP Mobilisation Secretary Habib Buwembo, Doreen Kaija, the Coordinator of the NUP School of Leadership who have all been abducted by state agents and are part of NUP’s list of hundreds of political prisoners.

Deputy Speaker Tayebwa, and Mao (right). Mao Mao has adopted Museveni’s talking points and speech mannerisms since he joined the cabinet in 2022.

Although the NUP secretariat in Makerere Kavule remains active—occupied by party officials and thronged by supporters—everyone remains haunted by fear of arrest, abduction and torture in several of the dungeons run by security agencies like SFC, ISO, CMI.

NUP’s fight

Bobi Wine, Rubongoya and Joel Ssenyonyi have their social media feeds inundated by the latest arrests and abductions.

In parliament recently, Ssenyonyi addressed the issue while waving a copy of the constitution which is marking 30 years since its enactment. “Chapter 4 which is the bill of rights has Article 23 which provides for the mode for how someone gets to be arrested if they are suspected to have committed an offense; family, lawyers are notified,” he said during a plenary session on Sept. 17.

“Of late Hon Speaker, this provision has been violated. People are kidnapped.” The government has been cagey about missing persons with each official either denying or peddling misinformation about the whereabouts of those missing or denying the nature of the disappearances as abductions.

Uganda Human Rights Commission chairperson Mariam Wangadya told journalists a few days later that she was not aware of any abductions happening in the country.

Among the thousands that have been abducted is one prominent name, John Bosco Kibalama, who was kidnapped on Martyrs Day in 2019. “The Prime Minister told the nation Kibalama was in state custody while the UPDF spokesperson Felix Kualyigye said Kibalama was in another country. Is that the new position of the government?” Ssenyonyi asked further.

This time, the People Power movement isn’t just fighting for votes; it’s a battle for survival in a political landscape where freedom of assembly and dissent are increasingly met with a heavy hand. The entry of Gen. Muhoozi on the political scene has made it a zero sum game for the party that joined the fray five years ago.

The CDF has assumed almost full spectrum control of the security apparatus and is now accustomed to issuing orders on X to Police and all army units. As a result, Muhoozi has turned it into a hobby to order raids on NUP headquarters time and again with state security agents destroying equipment, furniture and arresting whoever is found on site.

Muhoozi also taunts NUP on Twitter and vows to unleash terror in spite of all the laws that prohibit from making political statements as a serving officer of the UPDF. But Muhoozi is the President’s son and he has had carte blanche since he declared his own presidential ambitions as early as 2021.

His party, Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU) remains understated but formidable with the full force of Muhoozi’s authority. That is in essence the state of affairs Bobi Wine and NUP are dealing with in the 2026 election.

NUP has been in active mobilisation in the last five years with a string of tours and opening of district offices. In August, NUP opened an eastern regional office in Iganga District. The regional office will coordinate party activities alongside the offices in Jinja and Kibuku to maintain a grip on the massive voting bloc that is eastern Uganda. In 2021, Bobi Wine defeated Museveni in Busoga.

NUP’s centre of gravity is in Buganda where it scored the highest and where the majority of MPs hail from. The party strategy appears to be to multiply its support in Buganda and Busoga, the most populated parts of the country.

Bobi Wine and NUP are the only notable opposition to Museveni and NRM. But Bobi Wine now appears as a lonely figure. The possible alliances and talks he had with Dr Besigye are now no longer an option since Besigye was thrown in jail a year ago.

Besigye detention

The Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), once the party of Retired Col. Dr Kizza Besigye and the standard bearer of opposition politics, has now been co-opted into Museveni’s NRM politics. The FDC’s new leaders, Patrick Oboi Amuriat and Nandala Mafabi are happy bed-follows of Besigye’s nemesis, President Museveni.

In another ironical twist, Nandala Mafabi is in the race against Museveni. Some commentators say with such, Uganda’s political environment has decidedly regressed.

Meanwhile Besigye is in jail—ten months now—and his new party, the Peoples’ Front for Freedom (PFF) just announced that they are not fielding a presidential candidate. He is jailed alongside Obeid Lutale, his longtime associate. Another associate of Besigye, Sam Mugumya is missing. He is a parliamentary candidate and he was reportedly abducted by state agents and there is speculation that he could have been killed.

Besigye’s detention has caused division even in the highest levels of government. “Besigye should be tried in court and condemned or absolved…We don’t know what he did…For us, in the court of public opinion, he’s innocent,” says Minister of Internal Affairs, Maj Gen Kahinda Otafiire who is known for speaking bluntly.

The former president of FDC has been denied bail several times and reports say his health is deteriorating. Besigye is 69 and he was conspicuously absent as his compatriots formed a new party, PFF.

Besigye came back from exile two decades ago to challenge President Museveni and the journey since then shows the ominous trajectory of Uganda’s body politic.

Even back then, the signs of oppression were clear. Besigye was charged with treason, rape, misprision of treason when he announced his presidential campaign after returning from South Africa. He was nominated as a presidential candidate while in jail.

The other remaining notable party, ANT has struggled to find a footing even as its leader retired Gen. Mugisha Muntu embarks on a second presidential campaign. Muntu’s announcement of his bid barely registered a whimper