Lands minister Namuganza declares bid for speakership

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The race for Speaker of the 12th Parliament has intensified after Persis Namuganza, the State Minister for Lands, declared her intention to challenge incumbent Speaker Anita Among.

Namuganza confirmed to supporters that she will seek the top parliamentary seat, setting the stage for a high-stakes contest.

Namuganza, the Member of Parliament for Bukono County in Namutumba district, made the declaration on February 13, 2026, during a news briefing at her office in Kampala. Her entry brings the number of contenders in the Speakership race to three.

The contest already includes justice minister Norbert Mao, who is also president general of the Democratic Party, underlining the growing political intrigue ahead of the formation of the 12th Parliament.

In a fiery pledge that sharpened the tone of the contest, Namuganza vowed to wage an all-out war on corruption, accusing the current leadership of presiding over a Parliament she said has been crippled for the last five years.

“Parliament has been brought to its knees by corruption. Instead of being an independent arm of government, it has been reduced to a battlefield for settling personal and political scores,” she said, accusing the incumbent Speaker of using Parliament “as a tool to fight those she disagrees with.”

In 2023, Parliament voted to censure Namuganza over alleged misconduct, a move her allies denounced as politically motivated and intended to silence a dissenting voice.

Unbowed, Namuganza dismissed the process as persecution, insisting she was being punished for refusing to toe the line and for maintaining an independent political stance within a tightly controlled system.

Her resilience was again tested during the 2025 to 2026 electoral cycle when she lost the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party card in the primaries. Defying expectations, Namuganza ran as an independent and won, cementing her image as a formidable grassroots mobiliser in the Busoga sub-region.

She is widely viewed as politically aligned with former Speaker Rebecca Kadaga, whose rivalry with Anita Among reshaped internal power dynamics in the 11th Parliament.

While Among retains firm control of parliamentary leadership and enjoys backing from sections of the NRM establishment, Namuganza’s entry into the race injects fresh uncertainty into what many had assumed would be a straightforward retention bid.

Among and her deputy, Thomas Tayebwa, were last month endorsed for the same positions in the 12th Parliament by the NRM top decision-making organ, the Central Executive Committee (CEC), chaired by party chairman President Yoweri Museveni.