2026 elections: Vision Group starts series on citizen manifesto

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With barely six months to the January 12, 2026, general election, a new citizens’ manifesto and opinion poll survey to guide election coverage and promote citizen-centred dialogue has been launched by Vision Group.

Starting this weekend, New Vision will publish an in-depth article every day highlighting each of the major issues in detail, as put forward by voters. 

This is the fourth time Vision Group has conducted such surveys ahead of the general election.

According to the Electoral Commission roadmap, Ugandans will elect their political representatives between January 12 and February 9, 2026.

The political party primaries have already started, and the national nominations and campaigns are expected to kick off between September 3 and December 12, 2025.

During the State of the Nation address, President Yoweri Museveni asked voters not to be influenced by money but to elect leaders who will address their concerns.

Voters concerns

To capture citizen views ahead of the 2026 elections, Vision Group recently undertook a survey on the voter issues and an opinion poll on their preferred candidates at the presidential, constituency and district levels.  

To ensure national representation, the Vision Group research team sampled 6,006 eligible Ugandan voters across 45 districts. Only citizens possessing a valid national identification card and above 18 years were sampled. The survey covered all 17 sub-regions of Uganda.

The respondents were randomly sampled from both rural and urban areas. Of the total respondents, 2,433 were from urban areas, while 3,573 respondents were picked from the urban areas.

According to the survey, the majority of the respondents were between the ages of 25 and 29 years (1,201) and 30 and 34 years (1,058). Only 19 of the total sampled respondents refused to respond to the questions.

The respondents were interviewed face-to-face using structured questionnaires and data were managed digitally using Kobo Collect, ensuring accuracy and efficiency in data entry.

The respondents were randomly asked to state their most outstanding concerns in their localities, without giving them a list of issues to choose from. The issues raised include healthcare, education, security, roads, agriculture, employment, land, water, environment, and governance. New Vision will give the detailed findings in subsequent stories.

The researchers asked the respondents about their preferred presidential candidate and suitability in addressing key sectors.

The details will be published in The Weekend Vision edition of June 21 and 22.

The voters were further asked about Uganda’s readiness for a woman President and preferences regarding Members of Parliament and District Chairpersons. The survey also quizzed voter readiness for 2026.

The research team also interrogated the issue of governance and corruption, assessing public awareness of government services.

The survey also addressed environmental concerns and gathered data on community involvement in sustainability practices such as tree planting and environmental protection.

New Vision Editor-In-Chief Barbara Kaija explained that the Citizens Manifesto is a compilation of Ugandan views collected by a team of professional researchers ahead of the national election.

“We sample the whole country and ask Ugandans who they would choose for President and Member of Parliament. We also find out the major issues they want their leaders to address. We shall be releasing the results in the subsequent stories that we plan to run on all our Vision Group media platforms, including the New Vision and Bukedde newspapers; Bukedde TV, TV West and Wan Luo; and broadcast on the radio stations, including Bukedde Radio, Radio West, Kabalega FM, Rupiny FM, Etop Radio, Arua One and XFM. We shall also publish the findings on all our online properties,” Kaija said.

On the credibility of the survey, Kaija said: “This is a scientific survey and it was not influenced by anybody, not even the government is informed when we are doing this research. Any other researcher is free to do their research for comparison. I am very confident of the results because in the past, similar surveys done by New Vision have not been so different from the final election results.”

Vision Group strategy and insights manager Caroline Arinaitwe said, although Uganda is a nation with immense potential, citizens have consistently voiced concerns around governance, service delivery and inclusive development.

“Recent years have seen a growing shift from passive political representation to active civic engagement, signalling a maturing participatory democracy where citizens increasingly influence decisions and hold leaders accountable,”. Arinaitwe said during the study, respondents were rigorous and transparently engaged and robust data collection methods were used to generate reliable, representative insights.