Humanist

There is a flurry of activity as ‘opposition political parties’ form alliances ahead of the 2026 presidential and parliamentary elections.

This past week, announcements made that the Democratic Front (DF), the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and the People’s Development Party (PDP) have formed an alliance. While the People’s Front for Freedom (PFF) and the Alliance for National Transformation (ANT) have also formed an alliance.

The PFF-ANT alliance is fascinating. Among founding members of both parties are those who were once significant members of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), which still exists and from whence the new parties splintered. Dr. Warren Kizza Besigye Kifefe of PFF and Mr. Gregory Mugisha Muntuyera (Muntu) of ANT were both significant members and leaders of FDC.

The two, Dr. Besigye and Mr. Muntu, once served and held high command positions in Uganda’s military, from which both are since retired. Both served under the command of His Excellency Yoweri Kagutta Museveni, who reigns into a fourth decade of being the President of Uganda.

Dr. Besigye and Mr. Muntu, indeed, are among the historical figures of the National Resistance Army (NRA) and the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party. Both once considered close to and confidants of President Museveni. Making the PFF-ANT alliance even the more fascinating.

The PFF-ANT alliance is of two political parties formed after each complied with the current rigor of registration, in which the Electoral Commission (EC), among others, prescribes a registration requirement for parties to:

“Submit a list of the full names and addresses of at least fifty members of the organisation from each of at least two thirds of all districts of each of the traditional geographical regions of Uganda and who must be resident or registered voters in the districts.”

According to PFF, it took them eight months to surmount many challenges, including alleged state sanctioned harassment, to gather and obtain the required signatures from resident or registered voters in the districts countrywide. Similar sentiments were prior expressed by ANT when it went through its registration process.

Uganda is divided into 136 districts, unevenly distributed in four traditional geographical regions – Northern 30, Eastern 45, Central 27 and Western 34. Meaning, in order to fulfill the requirements for registration, PFF obtained backing from at least 4,500 registered voters from 91 districts – Northern 20, Eastern 30, Central 18 and Western 23.

Signalling the PFF-ANT alliance is strong, formed of two parties that each have demonstratable countrywide backing from the start. This is in stark contrast with the DF-SDP-PDP alliance. All three parties in the tripartite alliance were registered when there was no requirement to obtain backing from two thirds of all districts in the four regions.

All the parties in the DF-SDP-PDP tripartite alliance were seemingly founded with narrow backing, predominantly from Central region, Buganda. Interestingly, the main figures in all the three parties were either active in or aligned with the non-partisan pressure group, the People Power Movement.

However, the People Power Movement was hijacked and transmogrified into an existing political party, National Unity Reconciliation and Development Party (NURP), founded in 2004, which was then re-branded the National Unity Platform (NUP) and with narrow backing, predominantly from Buganda.

Allegedly, the main figures in NUP, bought NURP and rebranded it as though it were a new political party. Similarly, DF allegedly bought the Green Partisan Party (GPP) prior formed in 2010 and re-branded it as though it were a new political party. An ingenious transactional commercial path to political party formation.

How ironic that those who decry commercialization of politics and political participation, vote buying, are the same ones trading in political parties as though they were for-profit corporations – mergers and acquisitions.

Uganda has 27 political parties registered with the Electoral Commission, but only seven have members of parliament (MPs). The majority, 20 parties, are without MPs. They seemingly exist only on paper as political parties. Their activities, if at all, are unknown.

Prior to being bought off by NUP, NURP was seemingly also only a party on paper. Officially, GPP does not have any members of parliament, for its new owners, albeit some are MPs, they joined Parliament as members of NUP and other opposition political parties.

• As a nation, should we turn a blind eye to this emerging trend of political party formation by merger and acquisition?
• How is it useful for our nation to have 20 politically dormant political parties registered with the EC?
• Should it not be a requirement for political parties wishing to re-brand due to change of ownership to go through the rigor of obtaining countrywide backing from voters?

The professed reason for the mergers and acquisitions – NURP to NUP and the latest GPP to DF – is to form political parties that will govern differently from the NRM and will unseat the NRM from power.

But if the protagonists are unable to work well within the same political party how then can they expect to mobilize social capital with other political parties, especially those from which they splintered?

Increasingly, it seems political parties in the opposition are the more fragmented; and spend much more energy firing the proverbial guns at each other. They seem to have lost their proclaimed intention to unseat the ruling party. In fact, they seem aiding the ruling party instead.