Museveni poised to win with high margins

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OPINION

By Moses Byaruhanga 

Since the campaigns kicked off on September 30, 2025, the NRM Presidential Candidate has addressed slightly above 100 rallies across the Country.

President Museveni, the NRM Presidential Candidate, is poised to win this election. His campaigns are based on a message of consolidating peace and security, infrastructural development, wealth creation in individual households, services sector, ICT, domestic, regional and international markets and strategic security for Africa.

Alongside the presidential campaigns are the Parliamentary and Local Government campaigns. These, too, the NRM is going to win them very well. At Parliament, the direct Constituencies are 353 while the ones for women are 146. In total, there are 499 seats for the direct constituencies and the Women Members of Parliament for Districts and Cities.

To show that NRM is poised to win Parliament, it has nominated candidates in all the 499 seats above. The one next to the NRM is NUP, which has been nominated in 294 seats out of 499, which represents 59%. They have left 41% of the seats for NRM to compete with Independents and other smaller parties of no significance.

At the Local Government level, NRM has been nominated in all 146 districts and Cities for the District Chairpersons and City Mayors.

The one next to us is NUP with candidates in 49 districts and Cities. This represents 33.5% of the seats.

When it comes to district direct councillors, the total seats is 2,198. NRM has nominated in all, while NUP has candidates in only 29% of the seats.

For the sub-county chairpersons, the total seats are 2,198. NRM has candidates in all, while NUP has candidates in only 28%.

For the sub-county councillors, the seats are 10,717. NRM has been nominated in all, while NUP is in only 19% of the seats.

NUP wants to deceive Ugandans that it can win presidential elections when it cannot raise candidates in all the electoral areas in Uganda. Remember, they asked aspirants to write to the party to express interest in offering themselves.

For one to be a candidate, he/she must have hope that they can win. So, failure to raise candidates in all the electoral areas is a clear signal that those who could not show interest in offering themselves didn’t have hope in winning for NUP.

Look at it this way: NUP wants to win the Presidency and be in opposition in Parliament and the Local Governments.

Imagine a President without a majority in Parliament. How will your policies and the budget be passed? So, Ugandans, don’t be deceived. NRM is going to win all three elections, Presidential, Parliamentary and Local Government.

For candidate Museveni, the focus now is on the percentage being so high. We need to mobilise a high turnout so that the win is so sweet.

This brings me to the fracas in the news on confrontations between NUP and the Police. There are counteraccusations between the Police and NUP.

The Commission should call the Police and NUP and hear both sides, and establish who is in the wrong. We don’t want anyone to spoil the good win we are headed to.

One of the President’s messages is about wealth in individual households.

In the past, we started with Entandikwa, prosperity for all, OWC through NAADS and UCDA giving out seedlings and other inputs, and now the Parish Development Model (PDM) and Emyooga.

Under PDM, every Parish receives sh100m to be lent out to 100 beneficiary households, with each getting one million shillings.

So far, 3.5million households have benefited from PDM.

This programme is not only getting Ugandans in the money economy but also creating jobs. On average, a single PDM project creates about two jobs.

So, as the beneficiary gets household income, he/she create income for the workers employed.

Furthermore, when the beneficiaries start earning income, they spend part of it on consumption. This has an effect of increasing local demand for our manufactured goods.

I have talked to some manufacturers in steel, dairy and mattresses. They report increased local sales.  With more sales locally, the manufacturers will produce more goods. This has a bearing on more jobs being created, more revenue to the URA. It's this revenue that will be invested in the social service, education and health.

Fortunately, for the NRM, when the NUP presidential candidate was in Busoga, he announced that his party would abolish PDM.

So, the Ugandans who are in the PDM category and are yet to benefit from PDM, you only need to come out in big numbers and vote for the NRM presidential candidate, who is going to continue with the PDM and in densely populated areas of Greater Kampala, the money will be increased annually from sh100m per Parish to sh300m. 

Also, the NRM will introduce a fund to help young people who have completed tertiary education start their own businesses. This, too, will stimulate jobs and internal demand.

On the part of manufacturing, the NRM is committed to further lowering the cost of production through continued infrastructure investment, including the Standard Gauge Railway.

The Kampala-Malaba line is expected to be completed in 2029. This will lower the cost of transport to and from the sea by 50%.

Other areas of lowering the cost of doing business include bringing down the cost of electricity.

After the UMEME buyout, the cost of power for the extra-large manufacturers has reduced from 8.5 US cents to 5.0 US cents. Our target is for the cost of power to reduce to 5US cents per unit for all manufacturers, irrespective of category.

Other measures for the manufacturers is to continue capitalising UDB to offer affordable long-term loans to the manufacturing and the service sectors, like tourism and market access.

For agriculture, first, about 85% of the PDM beneficiaries are in agriculture. For the big-scale farmers, we have introduced a fund where we are offering interest-free loans through government-owned banks; Pearl Bank, Housing Finance Bank and Pride Bank.

We will also continue with the agricultural insurance scheme and the Agricultural Credit Scheme. Furthermore, we are introducing a fertiliser fund to help farmers borrow money at an affordable cost and use fertilisers in their gardens. 

Alongside the above, we are investing in irrigation schemes for communities. At the individual farmer level, we will do cost sharing between the Government and the farmer for the big farmers. Voting for Museveni guarantees a prosperous future.

The writer is Senior Presidential Advisor/Political Affairs, State House