As another electoral period draws nearer, Moses Bigirwa, a top mobilizer in the National Unity Platform (NUP), has revealed that his party intends to shift focus from a manifesto-based campaign to “total hooliganism” ahead of the 2026 general elections.
Bigirwa, who was speaking during a political talk show at a local TV station on Wednesday night, April 10, 2024, claimed that Ugandans do not pay attention to manifestos presented by candidates during campaigns, which has prompted NUP to change strategy and focus their attention on defiance and civil disobedience in the upcoming electoral season.
“We (NUP) and our president, Robert Kyagulanyi, will be pushing out the current president using hooliganism since in Uganda we are not yet at a level where people get voted because they have good manifestos,” Bigirwa stated, adding that in 2021, even though all opposition parties had manifestos, they did not succeed; therefore, depending on the current trend, chaos will be the way to go in 2026.
Bigirwa’s assertions can be validated by the events in NUP, where the country is witnessing a seemingly well-planned gradual purge of members with the competence of formulating an appealing manifesto and promoting violent, inexperienced fellas, formerly ‘Firebase’ members, to steer the party.
Beheld in the continued sidling of nearly half of the party’s parliamentarians who do not subscribe to violent modus operandi and the composition of NUP’s Central Executive Committee, which includes the likes of Eddy Mutwe, Dan Magic, and Nubian Lee, among other Firebase members, as revealed by Abed Bwanika, it leaves less doubt that what Bigirwa was saying is the real plan of NUP ahead of the 2026 general elections.
However, during the same talk show, Frank Bamwine, a commissioner at the Resident District Commissioners’ Secretariat who was speaking on behalf of the government, assured Ugandans that security will not allow any kind of hooliganism to prevail in the 2026 elections and called on citizens to anticipate exercising their democratic rights without any intimidation.
