Mugisha Muntu: A convergence point of ANT, PFF in seeking presidential seat

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Former Uganda army commander Maj. Gen. (rtd) Mugisha Muntu, who has been chosen by the Alliance for National Transformation (ANT) and the People’s Front for Freedom (PFF) parties to hold the presidential aspirant flag for the 2026 General Election, has been fully nominated. 

The decision is expected to dislodge incumbent President Yoweri Museveni of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) from the seat he has held since 1986.  

Both ANT and the Katonga-based PFF are splinter groups from the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC). 

The Najjanankumbi-based political establishment suffered its initial break-up after the party's founding principals: Kizza Besigye and Muntu, disagreed over strategy in 2017.

Besigye and his allies backed Patrick Oboi Amuriat for the party presidency in 2017 against the then incumbent, Muntu. 

While Besigye and his group believed in defiance or radicalism to foster regime change, Muntu advocated for the strengthening of the party structures at the grassroots to overwhelm the NRM leadership out of power.

Muntu had in 2008 unsuccessfully contested for the FDC's presidency against Besigye but was later elected as the party's president in 2012.

Departure from FDC and ANT formation

Muntu, who lost to Amuriat in 2017, officially broke ranks with FDC in September 2018.

"I am not leaving FDC because I lost, but because of internal fights; I have never feared in my life what people think because it's not them who make judgments,” Muntu said as he quit FDC.

Muntu announced his exit from FDC in September 2018 after a meeting between him and the FDC leadership at Fairway Hotel in Kampala.

The meeting was to, among others, discuss the outcome of the nationwide consultations carried out between January 15 and September 7, 2018, by his camp. The consultations were launched after he lost the FDC presidency to Amuriat in November 2017. 

In his statement, Muntu indicated that although the FDC elections that ushered in Amuriat were legitimate, the implication of the outcome left the party divided between those who were interested in defiance and those who felt strongly that the party should be focused on a different path of building structures.

“We have confirmed to the FDC leadership our decision to leave the party as the best way forward for all of us,” the former army commander said.

On March 19, 2019, Muntu formed a political party: Alliance for National Transformation.

Then FDC vice-president (eastern region) Proscovia Salaam Musumba, said Muntu’s exit from the party he helped form in 2004 was necessary.

“FDC is still robust. Muntu's exit was necessary; you can't be in a party where you are uncomfortable. You can't live with a hand that's sick or not working together. Our colleagues (the Muntus) moved on and you know where they are,” Musumba said on Monday, October 31. 

She was speaking on one of the morning TV talk-shows in Kampala.

Together with his allies, such as Alice Alaso, Kassiano Wadiri, Paul Mwiru, and others formed ANT, which has since failed to gather effective political momentum.

2021 presidential campaigns

He performed abysmally in the 2021 general election, with the political landscape experiencing new dynamics such as the emergence of Robert Kyagulanyi as the electromagnet of opposition sympathisers. 

The FDC equally lost the dominance of the opposition as Kyagulanyi’s National Unity Platform (NUP) emerged as the lead opposition party in Parliament.

After the 2021 general elections, noisy and messy disagreement erupted again in FDC with Besigye and his allies, such as Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago and outspoken Kira Municipality legislator Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, accusing FDC secretary general Nathan Nandala Mafabi (now also a presidential candidate) and the party president Amuriat of financing the 2021 election campaigns using Museveni's money. 

In the wake of what was dubbed ‘Museveni dirty money’, the Besigye group decamped into the Katonga faction and morphed into the PFF.

ANT and the PFF, the newest political party in the country, have since signed a political cooperation agreement and have offered to back Muntu for the Presidency.

After a sustained struggle to match up with the Electoral Commission (EC) guidelines, Muntu was scheduled to be nominated on Wednesday, September 24, 2025, to contest for the presidency.

Profile

Muntu was born in October 1958 at Kitunga village in present-day Ntungamo district, Ankole sub-region, Western Uganda, to Enock Ruzima Muntuyera and Aida Matama Muntuyera.

According to sources, he had an affluent childhood as his father was a strong government functionary and a close friend of former President Milton Obote.

He attended Mbarara Junior School, Kitunga Primary School and Kitunga High School, later renamed Muntuyera High School, in memory of his father by Obote.

He attended Makerere College School and went on to graduate in political science from Makerere University, where he was deputy president of the students' union.

Military career

The day Muntu completed university exams at Makerere, he joined the rebel movement National Resistance Army (NRA) led by then rebel chief Yoweri Museveni in the Luwero Triangle to the chagrin of his family and President Obote, who considered him a son.

It is said that in the early days of his joining the NRA, he was shot in the chest but survived after receiving treatment in Kampala.

Shortly after the NRA victory in 1986, Muntu was appointed head of the military intelligence and supervised, among others, personalities such as Paul Kagame, who would later become the President of Rwanda.

Muntu underwent further elite military training in Russia before becoming a division commander in Northern Uganda, and he rapidly rose through ranks to Major General and served as the army commander.

In the assignment, he, among others, oversaw the demobilisation of many sections of the army as he was credited for his reputation as an incorruptible and loyal officer to President Museveni.

Museveni is said to have strongly stood with Muntu in many quarrels with sections of the army, which accused him of trying to alienate them, led by the fallen former army chief Maj. Gen. James Kazini.

Political career

Muntu was a member of the Constituent Assembly (1994–1995) that promulgated the 1995 Uganda Constitution.

After disagreeing with Museveni's approach to politics and the military, he was removed from the army command and appointed as a minister, a position he politely turned down.

In November 2001, he was selected by the members of the Ugandan Parliament to serve as one of the nine Ugandan representatives to the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA).

He was one of the founding icons of the Reform Agenda, which transitioned into Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) after the 2005 referendum process that opened the return door for political parties.

In 2020, he was among the forces that attempted to form a political alliance to face Museveni in 2021, but the efforts collapsed.

The others, in an attempt to achieve an alliance, included Bobi Wine, Henry Tumukunde, Norbert Mao, and Amuriat Oboi.