Museveni weakens DP ahead of 2026 elections

On July 21, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who is also the chairman of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) party,   appointed Norbert Mao, the president general of the Democratic Party (DP),as Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs. 

The appointment came a day after NRM and DP leaders signed a cooperation agreement at Nakasero State lodge. Many commentators from the DP party, and the opposition in general, said that Mao was compromised by Museveni to weaken the opposition as he (Museveni) prepares for an easy win in the 2026 presidential elections.

Mao, who in the past was a known as a fierce critic of Museveni, made a U turn. Some of his colleagues including Samuel Walter Mukaaku with whom they founded the Uganda Young Democrats (the youth wing of DP) in the 1990s, say that they did not trust Mao. They always suspected him of being a Museveni mole.  

“Mr Mao has been a good friend to [President] Museveni’s young brother, Gen Salim Saleh for a long time,” Mukaaku said, adding that at one time, Gen Saleh was the chairman of a Union while Mao was his vice in the 1990s.

Mao’s bromance with Museveni became more visible in 2002, when Mao was appointed by Museveni on a six-member committee led by Eriya Kategeya, to lead talks with the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels.

Mao was trusted to carry out this diplomatic task, despite the fact that he belonged to the opposition camp which pinned Museveni for failure to bring peace to northern Uganda. It is at this moment that his colleagues in DP thought that Mao could be a sell out  working for Museveni. However, Mao being a very good orator, and an astute politician, always reasoned out his critics in DP and defended his relationship with Museveni as uncompromising.

When Mao fell sick in 2014, and needed to be flown to Nairobi for treatment, it is said that he was flown in a military helicopter from Gulu, in northern Uganda, to the country’s main international airport in Entebbe where he connected to Nairobi, Kenya. This incident was used  to pin him as an NRM mole. Again, Mao denied getting money from NRM as some of his colleagues alleged that the government paid for his medical bills to the tune of UgShs 350 million.

In 2017, DP members Elias Lukwago and Betty Nambooze, accused Mao of killing DP. When they tried to revive the party, it is said, Mao blocked their plans by asking the police to arrest them.

“Mao and [Dennis] Mbidde have a calculated agenda for DP to die out through inactivity. They have deliberately refused to hold party meetings to the extent that the National Executive Committee we have today isn’t fully constituted…. The DP is run as an organ of the state where all the decisions of the party are reached after consulting the ruling government and executed by Uganda police,” Nambooze said.

In 2018, Mao convened a “DP re-union” and was not able to bring together the antagonistic factions within the party. His efforts to form a coalition with then People Power and Mugisha Muntu’s Alliance for National Transformation (ANT), did not materialize. Instead, it resulted in further weakening of DP as a number of leaders especially in Buganda region defected to National Unity Platform (NUP). When Mao ran for president in the 2021 general elections, it is believed that he did so on the script of NRM, with intentions to weaken a new party -NUP of Robert Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine, which was feared by the NRM camp.

It is evident that Museveni being a ‘professor of politics,’ has been working slowly but surely on wooing the oldest opposition party in Uganda’s politics – DP, starting from its leader, Mao.

Now, with a carrot in the mouth and a marriage certificate with NRM, the two are likely to cost Mao the party leadership position and cause a widened split in his party.

For Museveni, there is nothing to lose. Museveni only stands to gain as Mao has a faction that believes in him. Political analysts believe that, Museveni is moving from the winner takes it all approach to a broad based government that accommodates the opposition, hence weakening the opposition. This will make him preside over a stable government with less noise.  

The question that remains is: will the same strategy work to woo NUP to the ruling camp since it was the biggest challenger to NRM in the 2021 elections? Time will tell.