NUP top leaders move to reinvigorate party after January 15 polls
Led by Secretary General David Lewis Rubongoya and Leader of the Opposition in Parliament Joel Ssenyonyi, the party’s top brass met leaders from various levels within Kampala before addressing a press conference on several issues.
NUP's Secretary General David Lewis Rubongoya. NUP, which is the largest opposition party in the country, lost seven parliamentary seats during the general election held on January 15, 2026. (File photo)
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The top leadership of the National Unity Platform (NUP) on Thursday (March 5) moved to reinvigorate the party following the recent general election, in which it lost some ground in the central region but made gains in the eastern region.
Led by Secretary General David Lewis Rubongoya and Leader of the Opposition in Parliament Joel Ssenyonyi, the party’s top brass met leaders from various levels within Kampala before addressing a press conference on several issues.
The meeting took place at the NUP headquarters in Makerere-Kavule, Kampala.
“In the coming days, we intend to meet our leaders from the different sub-regions of the country, in the quest to reinvigorate them, and chat out a way forward on the numerous issues at hand,” Ssenyonyi, who is also the NUP spokesperson, said on X, formerly Twitter, after the meeting.
NUP, which is the largest opposition party in the country, lost seven parliamentary seats during the general election held on January 15, 2026.
The ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM), on the other hand, increased its share of legislators by 18 after securing 354 seats.
NUP leader Robert Kyagulanyi again rejected the result of the presidential election, in which incumbent President and NRM candidate Yoweri Museveni won a seventh term in office by a landslide.
Museveni won with 71.65% of the vote, close to his highest-ever tally of 74% in the country’s first multiparty election since he captured power in 1986 and ushered in two decades of no-party government.
Kyagulanyi, who was Museveni’s chief rival, garnered 24.72% in a race that had six other candidates.
He recently delivered a video message to the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy and claimed that President Museveni and the Chief of Defence Forces, Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, orchestrated widespread violence and election rigging.
The NUP president also alleged that the election was so manipulated that even at the polling station where Museveni voted in Rwakitura, Kiruhura district, he received more votes than the number of registered voters.
He has been in “hiding” since the general election was conducted.