Retired Major General Mugisha Muntu’s Alliance for National Transformation (ANT) party is looking forward with optimism as it starts grassroots mobilisation ahead of the 2026 general elections. 

ANT kick-started its voter mobilisation tours in Tororo district on Saturday (May 25) after what it called successful sub-county meetings in the Kapelebyong district. 

“We are unwaveringly resolved to build a robust political organization from the grassroots that will eventually transform Uganda,” the party said on X.

Muntu, Uganda’s longest-ever serving army commander and former Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party president, also took part in the tours. 

In the 2021 general elections, ANT performed dismally and failed to secure a single parliamentary seat.

Muntu also polled 67,574 votes (0.65%) in a presidential race of 11 candidates that saw incumbent President Yoweri Museveni of the National Resistance Movement carry the day with 58.38%.

The next general elections are slated for January 12 and February 9, 2026, but candidates for presidential, parliamentary and local government seats will be nominated from June to October 2025.

On September 25, 2017, Muntu quit FDC which he helped found in 2004 after what political analysts said was a bruising tenure as president from 2012 to 2017 and an equally divisive, and unsuccessful re-election bid in November that year (2017).

He then formed ANT on March 19, 2019, arguing that with irreconcilable differences and without properly constituted party structures, FDC could not achieve much.

“If we truly want to change our nation's trajectory, we must seek to do so differently. Replacing one strong man for another has never worked for us in the past; it will not work for us now. We must be willing to walk away from the politics of individuals to that of institutions,” Muntu said.

Many analysts say he is a long-distance runner whose project is long-term and didn’t seem to be bothered by the short-term gains of the last elections.  

They note that if he moves one step, he will congratulate himself and if he moves two steps, he will also give himself a pat on the back.