KAYUNGA. National Resistance Movement (NRM) leaders in Kayunga District have rejected what they termed as an “imported” campaign task force for President Museveni and party flag bearers for the 2026 elections in the district, noting that the move is a sign of mistrust in the district’s local party leaders.
During a Wednesday meeting for Kayunga district NRM party executive members and party flag bearers at various levels held in Kayunga Town, tempers flared among Kayunga NRM leaders after Hajjat Faridah Kibowa, who is the chairperson of President Museveni’s campaign taskforce for districts in Greater Mukono , announced that a campaign team comprising members from outside Kayunga District had been deployed to campaign for the president in the area.
Members of the ‘imported’ campaign task force were also in the meeting. Most of them, during their introduction, said they were working at the NRM Secretariat. They looked unamused by the claims from the Kayunga leaders.
“We have rejected your imported campaign task force in our district. Please go back with them. Don’t leave them here because we are not ready to work with them,” Mr Augustine Tumwine, the Kayunga District Entrepreneurs league chairperson, angrily said, amid ululations from other members.
Mr Tumwine, a vocal party member in the area, wondered how the campaign team members who are not conversant with the politics in the district would be able to convince residents to vote for President Museveni, who is seeking to extend his rule beyond four decades and other party flag bearers.
The meeting further heated up after Ms Prosy Naava, a councillor at Kayunga Town council reasoned that as local leaders, they have the capacity to canvass votes for the party more than the “foreign campaigners” and the move was aimed at denying them a chance to have a share of the campaign funds.
As the meeting degenerated into chaos, Ms Kibowa shot up and explained that the campaign team members who are from outside the district who had been deployed in the district would only play a “supervisory” role but the grassroots work of canvassing for votes would be done by local party leaders.
“Kindly accept the members and work with them because we want to work together so that our President can score over 90 percent in the elections. Don’t look at this team as people who have come to take away your work,” Ms Kibowa said.
She also accused the business community and fishermen across the country of not supporting President Museveni and NRM, noting that “they (business community) forget that they can’t make money when there is no peace which was ushered in by the president.
However, fishermen across the country have accused UPDF soldiers deployed on orders of President Museveni to man lakes, of meting out violence against the fishing community, which has in many cases resulted in death.
Mr Adrian Ddungu Wasswa, the Buvuma District chairman who deputises Ms Kibowa as the greater Mukono campaign taskforce, asked NRM leaders in Kayunga District to put aside their political differences and focus on delivering a big victory for President Museveni in the 2026 presidential elections.