Moses Ali versus Nambassa

How NUP and NRM sit at opposite ends of political spectrum

COVER STORY | IAN KATUSIIME | The unfolding generational divide between candidates of the ruling NRM party and its archrival, the National Unity Platform (NUP) could become the leading marker of the 2025-2026 election season currently playing out.

A demographic analysis at the start of the 11th parliament by Parliament Watch which monitors the legislative body indicated the average age was 46 years. With the high turnover of parliament and more young people joining elective politics, the mean age could lower to 39 in the coming 12th parliament.

The elders are facing a challenge from youngins even from within Museveni’s NRM party. Young people below 40 are jockeying for positions reserved for patriarchs such as vice chairman.

President Yoweri Museveni appeared to have grasped the urgency of the shifting demographics when, after his 2021 re-election, he appointed the youngest cabinet of his long reign which included Diana Mutasingwa, then-29 years old.

When Museveni kept in the cabinet leftovers of the old guard such as Third Deputy Prime Minister Moses Ali; then- 82 and Finance Minister Matia Kasaija; then-76, many assumed it would not be long before they left.

Instead, as the 2025-26 election season unfolds, the defiant elders appear to be following the cue of Museveni who is running for an unprecedented seventh electoral term, and hanging around.The NRM old guard have shown no interest in stepping down in many constituencies across the country.

Former Vice President Edward Ssekandi, Former Speaker of the House Rebecca Kadaga, ministers; Jim Muhwezi, Kahinda Otafiire, and former defence minister Crispus Kiyonga, are all in the running. All the five were born before Uganda attained independence and they came of age in the Amin-era taking part in the liberation struggle while in exile.

They represent a defiant hold onto the levers of power that have shaped the NRM’s enduring stay. Ssekandi was a lecturer at Law Development Centre in the seventies while Otafiire helped recruit fighters for Front for National Salvation (FRONASA), Museveni’s first political vehicle circa 1978.

Kiyonga first ran in the 1980 elections under Uganda Patriotic Movement, Museveni’s party at the time, and is making a comeback after a ten year absence from parliament. Kadaga is the longest serving MP in Uganda debuting in 1989 under the National Resistance Council, the legislative body put together by the NRA after it captured power.

In contrast, all the politicians in the NUP tent were born after independence. John Nambeshe, MP for Manjiya County in Bududa district is the eldest of the NUP lot in parliament having been born in 1965. Even those who crossed from the Democratic Party (DP) like Betty Nambooze, Mathias Mpuuga, Medard Sseggonna, Muwanga Kivumbi; were all born post-independence.

The NUP President, Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu aka Bobi Wine was born in 1982 when the NRA was waging its guerilla war. Joel Ssenyonyi, the NUP spokesperson and Leader of Opposition was born in 1986, the year Museveni came to power. The NUP Secretary General David Lewis Rubongoya, who is vying for Kampala Central, was born in 1988.

Clash with Gen-Z

By and large, NUP’s rank and file is made up of young Ugandans in their twenties and early thirties. They are the Gen Z—the demographic that has lit fuses in politics all over the world. Their main issues have been mainly lack of jobs, rising cost of living, political corruption, and state brutality.

This is the generation that has come of age in the era of the Covid-19 pandemic and appears determined to remake politics in ways that are not seen today. In neighbouring Kenya, the Gen Z are constantly challenging the government and winning concessions like Cabinet reshuffles and dropped taxes.

Similar sentiments are often expressed by the Gen-Z in Uganda. They are the main cohort who throng NUP headquarters and populate the internet with NUP insignia and are constantly asking the old guard to just quit. The question remains whether they can take root and shift from sentiments to actions.

The 82-year-old Ssekandi, who served a combined twenty years as Vice President and Speaker seemed to have spoken for his contemporaries when asked by journalists to step aside for fresh blood after being nominated by the party to run for a seventh term for Bukoto Central in Masaka District.

“I don’t know what you mean by the young generation and at what age they should serve but I think I have the capacity to continue serving my area to the best of my ability.”
The former VP was first elected to represent Bukoto Central as a Constituent Assembly delegate in 1994. He was re-elected in 1996, 2001, 2006, and 2011 until he was defeated in the 2015 primaries that also felled Muhwezi, Otaffire and Kiyonga.

For many Ugandans engrossed in the election season, no one has caused as much confoundment as 86-year old Gen. Moses Ali. Social media clips of Ali as he struggles to make a few steps on his feet or even string words together as he attempts to speak have become fodder for mockery.
Moses Ali is an elderly gentleman that under normal circumstances should not be vying for any election. But Ali was nominated by his party, the ruling NRM anyway, and could potentially win re-election for another five year term. He could also potentially be re-appointed back into cabinet if Museveni wins the 2026 presidential election.

The erstwhile giant of West Nile politics refuses to ride off into the sunset in spite of mounting pressure from the public to let the white whale go.

Ali was a minister of finance under former president Idi Amin—more than fifty years ago when 90% of the current parliament were not yet born—and a few of his cabinet colleagues today were in high school.

Commentators say he has become the poster boy for how out of touch the NRM is with the demographic shift of the nation it governs.

Museveni’s strategy

Some analysts say Ali represents the difficult choices Museveni must make as his long stranglehold on power gradually ebbs.

For many years Museveni has rewarded loyalty over competence. And Moses Ali is the epitome of that. Moses Ali, a retired General, rides on the past glory of being a leader of the Uganda National Rescue Front (UNRF), a rebel group in the West Nile region composed of Amin’s supporters. A Christmas Eve peace agreement in 2002 saw the group renounce their activities and get co-opted by the NRM government.

The two former rebel leaders have stood by each other since. In April, President Museveni was in Adjumani at a thanksgiving ceremony where he acknowledged Ali’s role in bringing peace and security.

But more than twenty years later, the octogenarians are hanging on together for another reason. For Museveni, it appears to be about company; a desire to deflect criticism for being the lone elderly figure atop a young nation.

Previously, Museveni has also not focused on the youth vote because statistics indicate they rarely vote. But 2026 appears different. Museveni, ever the astute politician, recognises that. He sees that he presides over a body politic with a vastly different demography. It is a Gen Z movement epitomised by NUP’s red beret.

Adorned by NUP supporters, it is now a widely recognisable symbol of the party that has become the vanguard of change in Uganda having dethroned the NRM in several constituencies in the central region while also making in-roads at the grassroots such as university guild races across the country.

To counter the Gen-Z, Museveni appears to have decided to throw into the political ring his son, 51-year old Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba. Muhoozi’s singular mission is to scare the hell out of the NUP youth.

Muhoozi, who is the Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) of the UPDF is very active on social media where he knows the youth congregate. Here, he has boasted about how he has deployed security operatives to ransack NUP offices and how he abducts and tortures NUP supporters such as Eddy Mutwe, bodyguard of NUP president Bobi Wine.

Some of Muhoozi’s moves are fueling the demographic tensions in the country ahead of the 2026 elections but Muhoozi appears determined to be feared if he cannot be loved.

Such tensions in the country have been simmering for years fanned by corruption, nepotism, unemployment, police violence, declining healthcare services, and apathy in public service.

Muhoozi also deploys that same tech savvy of NUP members. He mostly uses Twitter but can be expected to be equally savvy at deploying Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Youtube as effective tools in mobilising across Uganda and abroad in countries like Kenya, South Africa, UK, US and Canada where NUP has established strong chapters.
Museveni’s party has also rolled out what they have dubbed the “National Wake-up Call for the Youth”.

This problem is headed by Muhoozi’s wingman, Balaam Barugahara, who is the Minister for Youth and Children Affairs. Barugahara, who is a renowned organizer of music events locally called Ebivuulu, organises similar events of behalf of the Museveni campaign and dishes out money and items the youth yearn for such as boda boda bikes, sewing machines, hoes, pop-corn poppers and more.

Youth don’t vote

It is not clear if these activities will draw out the youth vote. According to the National Electoral Commission report for the 2020/21 general elections, the National Voters Register for the 2020/21 general election had 18,103,603 voters. Of these, only 7,392,676 or 40% were youth. The final vote tally delivered Museveni 58% of the vote. Bobi Wine took 35%. What would the result have been if the youth had registered and voted by over 50%?

According to the Uganda National Population and Housing census 2024 Final Report, about 22 million people or 50% of the population are under 18 years old and therefore out of the voting bracket. About 23 million people are in the voting bracket. Of these, only 5% of Uganda’s population are 60 years old and above and could represent the Museveni-like voters.

The rest could potentially vote for the opposition.The challenge for the youthful NUP leaders, therefore, appears to be how to transform the huge youth bulge into an opposition voting machine.

Over the years, empirical data from surveys by organisations such as Afrobarometer, a multi-national research project, have shown lower rates of political engagement among African youth (aged 18–35) in comparison with elders. The data show you aged between 18-and 25 years being the most reluctant to vote.

According to a paper entitled ` Demographic Change and Political Order
in Sub-Saharan Africa’, a major weakness for NUP has been that instead of serving to consolidate the opposition, ‘people power’ has also somewhat “drawn membership from other opposition parties thus further dividing rather than consolidating the country’s opposition”.

Equally, for many years, scholars and experts commenting on the so-called youth bulge in countries like Uganda have speculated that it might create a huge potential of mostly unemployed young men engaging in political instability, rebel movements or revolution.

Opposition Ground zero

Kawempe in Kampala is an area of such political instability and revolution fervour. It is opposition ground zero and one of the places in Kampala where NUP is entrenched in mayorships and councillor ships. The current mayor is Emmanuel Serunjoji, elected on the NUP ticket and so is one of his main challengers in the next election: former Kawempe North MP Latiff Sebaggala.

Kawempe is filled with young people looking for employment but in vain. The scarcity of opportunities has led to violent crime in Kampala’s northern division.

Kawempe is also prone to flash floods turning it into a cauldron of anger and urban frustration. It has famous neighborhoods like Bwaise, Kawempe-Tula, Kyebando and Mulago which have suffered economic stagnation as other suburbs like Ntinda where Moses Ali stays in the ‘minister’s village’ go through rapid urbanisation.

Kawempe is home to teeming young men and women who have been radicalised by state brutality: arrests, abductions and killings perpetrated by police and the army.

Recently, on June 22, security operatives killed a suspected bomber in Kalerwe whom they claimed wanted to detonate an explosive. Security officers said they had trailed the suspect for days.

But many of the eye witnesses interviewed by television crews expressed surprise at the military operation, especially after it emerged that such killings are sometimes staged by state security agents to catch the attention of their bosses and justify the large operation expenses they draw.

For some of them, the bomb incident was a continuation of the terror they witnessed during the recent election of their MP, Erias Nalukoola, who ran on the NUP ticket.

During the Kawempe by-election, the state deployed its infamous Joint Anti Terrorsim Task Force (JATT) which brutalised voters. Still Nalukoola beat the NRM’s Faridah Nambi by 9,000 votes. But in another twist, court nullified Nalukoola’s victory and another election is on the cards in red-hot Kawempe.

This is also the area where Dr. Shamim Nambassa, a 25-year old pharmacist, is contesting for the position of Woman Lord Councilor for Kawempe Division.

Analysts say the position of Lord Councillor that Nambassa is gunning for is actually crucial for righting the wrongs in administration and governance in a city that has been run into the ground by the NRM government as seen through mounds of garbage, multiplying potholes, and haphazard planning.

If Moses Ali, an octogenarian who is the Deputy Prime minister of Uganda and is seeking re-election for the umpteenth time for Adjumani West County, is the poster candidate of Museveni’s NRM, then Dr. Nambassa could be his opposite number.

Nambassa is a die-hard member of NUP and a former Guild President of Makerere University Kampala. She graduated in early 2024 and is contesting for the position of Woman Lord Councilor for Kawempe Division. She is a budding political figure that represents the fervour of the party which has the potential to shake the foundations of Ugandan politics.

Moses Ali and Nambassa sit at opposite ends of the political spectrum in Uganda: Ali is a chauffeur-driven government official with round-the-clock security, hefty allowances and has a political pact with President Museveni, as a former rebel leader, which is said to be the reason Museveni keeps him as Deputy Prime Minister.

Nambassa has worked as a medical intern at Yumbe Regional Referral Hospital–-a region where Ali has demi-god status. She has taken part in strikes protesting the non-payment of medical interns by a government that Ali has been part of for decades.

The position Nambassa is aspiring for is considered breadcrumbs going by how lucrative politics is as a career in Uganda. It attracts a salary of about Shs700,000 with meagre allowances for meetings. The two, from their respective stand points, have become the perfect picture of the generational dichotomy at the heart of Ugandan politics.

The 51-year-age difference between the deputy prime minister and the former guild president feeds into the political upheaval in the country.