Municipalities, city divisions elections start

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Voting across Uganda has today (January 27, 2026) started as over 5,400 candidates contest for chairpersonship of municipalities and city divisions, as well as councillor seats.  

A total of 325 candidates were nominated for 56 municipality and city division chairperson seats, 3,313 for 888 municipality/city division directly elected councillor positions, and 1,833 for 626 municipality/city division women's councillor slots.

In many areas, the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party hopes to capitalise on its earlier successes in the recent parliamentary, district chairperson and councillor elections.

Analysts say the results in these past elections showed more surrender of offices by the Opposition in districts such as Kasese and regions such as northern and eastern Uganda where the NRM has invested heavily in winning back voters.

“NRM has far outmatched the capacity of the Opposition while creating a perverse incentive for politicians and their supporters to switch sides,” Angelo Izama, a political analyst, told New Vision Online on January 26.

He added; “There is also the choice in some of these political markets between violence and coercion on one hand, as well as money and opportunity on the other. Voters tend to choose the latter easily.”

In the recent parliamentary elections, NRM won three seats in Kampala, four in Wakiso, including the district chairpersonship seat, and one LC5 position in Mukono, despite the National Unity Platform (NUP) candidate protesting the results. In Mukono, the main opposition political party (NUP) swept all the parliamentary seats.

In last Thursday’s local government council elections, NRM grabbed eight directly-elected councillor seats in Kampala, and the rest (17) were won by NUP, which also secured the Lord Mayoral position. The remaining eight positions of special interest group councillors (older persons, the elderly, youth and workers) are usually won by the NRM.

In Kampala city's Makindye Division mayoral race, the Electoral Commission (EC) disqualified 11 candidates, leaving the NRM’s Yasin Omari unopposed. This followed a petition Omari filed against the now disqualified 11 candidates, including NUP’s Bosco Lusagala, who had been seen as the favourite. Omari, who has been serving as Muyenga LC1 chairperson, is now waiting to be sworn in.

Find details in the New Vision Print edition of January 27, 2026.