NUP faces dilemma in picking 2026 General Election flag-bearers

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The National Unity Platform (NUP) party is facing a dilemma over which parliamentary and local council aspirants to select in the central region for the 2026 general election.

“We embarked on this exercise early; it is only that NUP has a lot of appeal in some parts of the country and, therefore, understandably, it is a challenge of choice, which is a welcome challenge,” NUP deputy president for the central region Muwanga Kivumbi told New Vision Online on Wednesday (August 13).

“We don’t prefer the other way round where parties are struggling to solicit for candidates,” Muwanga, who is also the Butambala County MP, added in an interview.

NUP secretary general David Lewis Rubongoya said the party’s election management committee was still vetting the over 3,622 aspirants for the party flag across various leadership positions.

He stated that there are different selection processes.

“The vetting committee is still doing its work, and after it will present the results to the executive board,” Rubongoya told New Vision.

The executive board is chaired by musician-turned-politician Robert Kyagulanyi, who is the party president.

“We have a very transparent [selection] process in NUP. It is one of the cardinal functions of the party and it [the executive board] handles it with utmost care and dedication,” Muwanga said when asked about the executive board.

The party’s election management committee started vetting the aspirants on July 28, 2025, at the NUP headquarters in Makerere-Kavule, Kampala.

Medard Sseggona, who is seeking re-election as Busiro East MP on NUP ticket, said the party’s vetting process is a test on their commitment to the struggle and the kind of leadership they want to give to the country.

“We look forward to a fair, transparent and successful exercise,” he said while appearing on one of the morning TV talk-shows in Kampala late last month.

“We had thought to improve the process of vetting candidates through the constitutional amendment that we undertook. Unfortunately, because of the troubles of our politics, that constitution has not been given an opportunity to be tested and to work because it was injuncted,” Sseggona said.

The three-time MP, who is formerly a member of the Democratic Party (DP), however, said they would not sit and wait for the court to finally determine the case before embarking on the process of vetting candidates.

“So, the leadership, I believe, had to improvise a process that is seemingly democratic to vet candidates, especially in those places where we have more than one candidate, as is the case in many places,” he said.

He noted that in 2020, they did it the way they did it because they did not have time on their side. He recalled that a party team would go to a particular small township and ask the members of the public to rate aspirants.

“We are a people power movement. We want to test and to engage the power of the people. Where I have been before (DP), it is the party that selects,” Sseggona said.

The party’s maiden vetting exercise of 2020 saw over seven seasoned opposition politicians overlooked as flag bearers for the 2021 parliamentary elections in Kampala.

They included Michael Mabikke, the two-time former Makindye East MP, Samuel Lubega Mukaaku, a former Presidential candidate, Kenneth Kakande, former DP spokesperson and Sulaiman Kidandala, the former Kampala deputy Lord Mayor.

Others were Moses Kasibante, the then Rubaga North MP, and his Makindye-Ssabagabo Municipality counterpart, Emmanuel Ssempala Kigozi.

All of them save for Kasibante were among DP bloc members who did all it takes to depict Kyagulanyi as the de facto Opposition leader in anticipation of his patronage.

So, when they officially crossed over to NUP in August 2020, a month after its formation, they expected automatic party endorsement because of promoting Kyagulanyi and the positions, academic qualifications and political experience they had.

However, the party’s election management team instead endorsed fresh-faced youth, including Joel Ssenyonyi, a former TV news anchor, who was then aged 32, and Derrick Nyeko, the then youth councillor for Makindye Urban Division, aged 28.

Ssenyonyi beat Kakande to the newly created Nakawa West constituency flag, while Nyeko trounced Mabikke and about five other aspirants to become NUP flag-bearer for Makindye East.

Nyeko had just defected from the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM).

That selection process saw the likes of Kakande cry foul, questioning the rationale of the endorsement procedure. They went on to unsuccessfully contest as NUP leaning independent candidates in the 2021 election.