Veteran politician Kabatereine eyeing Mbarara South Mayoral seat

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In Ugandan politics, household names often fade into oblivion after a term out of office.

And yet, Mary Frances Kabatereine of the Alliance for National Transformation (ANT) continues to defy this narrative.

For over two decades, she has maintained a political presence in the capital of the land of milk and honey. New Vision Online met Kabatereine at New Pearl Hotel in Mbarara city on October 6, 2025, for an exclusive interview on how she has remained relevant.

For those who grew up in Greater Ankole, Kabatereine, who is also the director of Kabatereine Memorial School, has always been a household name.

She was among the outspoken female politicians who burst onto the scene in the late 1990s when the women emancipation drive was making waves. While she ranked slightly below influential female figures such as Miria Matembe and Winnie Byanyima, her name was nonetheless widely recognised far and wide.

Kabatereine first ran as a local leader in Mbarara Municipality and was elected unopposed.

In 2001, when veteran politician Col. (rtd) Dr Kizza Besigye contested against President Yoweri Museveni, she served as the district chairperson of the Elect Besigye Taskforce in Mbarara.

Besigye court case

Needless to say, Mary Frances Kabatereine Ssemambo also served as a witness in Election Petition No. 1 of 2001, in which Besigye sued President Yoweri Museveni and the Electoral Commission, challenging election results.

In her affidavit, she claimed that in several polling stations, particularly in Nyabushozi County and Isingiro County South, agents of the petitioner were allegedly harassed, arrested, beaten, tied up, detained, threatened with violence, or chased away from polling stations by heavily armed UPDF soldiers and agents of the first respondent.

Actions that prevented the petitioner’s interests from being safeguarded at the polling stations.

This was, however, refuted by the Electoral Commission returning officer for Mbarara district, Hezzy Kafureka, according to a copy of the ruling.

Reform Agenda, FDC

On July 12, 2002, when the Reform Agenda was launched in Kampala with the election of a national steering committee chaired by Besigye, who at the time was in exile in South Africa, she was entrusted with the same position.

She retained the position even when the Reform Agenda merged with other political formations, including the Parliamentary Advocacy Forum (PAFO) in August 2004 to form Forum for Democratic Change (FDC).

“Then I stood with Miria Matembe, and I lost to her in the race for District Woman Representative for Mbarara (that was in 2001). Then, I also stood against John Kigyagi for the Mbarara Municipality electorate (2006), and I lost. But I know I won because people really supported me.”

In the 2006 elections, National Resistance Movement’s (NRM) John Arimpa Kigyagi beat Kabatereine by 2,858 votes to retain the Mbarara district seat. Kigyagi scored 15,402 votes while the latter, on the other hand, polled 12,548.

Shifting political goal posts

However, rather than give up, Kabatereine shifted political goal posts in the 2021 elections and aimed at a slightly lower position.

“I realised that we needed to go closer to the people, so I stood as Chairman LC3 for Kakoba division. That was in 2021. Now I am standing as Mayor for Mbarara City South, which is a bigger division,” she said.

While the commercialisation of elections has become a constant in Uganda’s politics, Kabatereine remains optimistic that there still remains a window.

“They have started seeing that when they do this (vote for those that bribe them), they miss out on good services, quality of education in school, roads. I pass through Kisenyi, there are roads that have been the same and all the three chairmen of the division of Kakoba have never done anything about it. And these are murram roads where Ugandans pass with their boda boda and cars,” she argued.

“And they (roads) are everywhere, no drainage, and they are not even first-class murram and remember this is a city. So, I am coming in to show people here that this can be changed and can do anything without stealing people’s money, and we organise this city. So that people can enjoy the safety of this city and come and invest here,” she added.

In the forthcoming general elections, Kabatereine will be up against several candidates, including NRM’s flagbearer Jomo Mugabe.

Mugabe was given the flag after securing 13,789 votes against 9,622 of his closest rival, Francis Asiimwe Ntegye, in the recent primaries.