The dust has barely settled on the recently announced parliamentary elections, yet one question hangs in the political air like smoke after a village fire: has the world moved on from Kizza Besigye? For a man who once bestrode Uganda’s opposition landscape like a colossus—commanding rallies that shook the ground, inspiring chants that echoed across hills, and giving the ruling establishment sleepless nights—the dismal performance of his new political outfit, the PFF, feels like a dramatic twist in a long-running political saga. It is as though the scriptwriters of Uganda’s politics decided to flip the page abruptly, leaving the protagonist trapped in Luzira on treason charges while his party stumbled at the ballot box.
Many had predicted a different story. Actually, some analysts whispered that Besigye’s imprisonment would act as a sympathy magnet, drawing voters toward his candidates the way iron filings rush to a magnet. After all, Uganda has a long history of rallying behind the persecuted. “A man in chains,” as the old saying goes, “often commands more attention than a man on a throne.” But this time, the chains did not glitter. The sympathy card, expected to be the ace up the PFF’s sleeve, turned out to be a joker.
The numbers tell a story sharper than any metaphor. out of the entire contry, the PFF managed to secure only two parliamentary seats—AOL Achan in Gulu City and Nakato Asinansi in Hoima City. Two seats. Not two dozen.Not two regions. Just two individuals standing like lonely trees in a political desert. For a party whose founder once pulled crowds that could fill stadiums, this outcome is nothing short of a political earthquake.
Even more striking is where the losses occurred. Kigezi—Besigye’s own home turf, the soil that raised him, the hills that once echoed his name—gave the PFF nothing. Not a single seat. The ruling NRM swept the region clean, “like a broom chasing dust out of a hut,” as one elder in kabale put it. Buganda, the political heartbeat of the country, also shut its doors. And in teso and Rwenzori—regions that once painted their ballots blue in Besigye’s heyday—the tide turned yellow again.
The fall of key party architects added salt to the wound. Ssemujju Nganda Ibrahim, a seasoned legislator from Kira and one of the most articulate opposition voices in Parliament, was felled. buikwe’s lulume Bayiga, another long-standing figure, also fell. Tooro’s Doreen Nyanjura, the former Kampala City Deputy Mayor and one of the most visible young opposition leaders, could not survive the wave either. It was a political harvest season in which the PFF reaped thorns instead of grain.
To understand this dramatic shift, one must revisit the Besigye of old—the man who, for nearly two decades, stood as the face of Uganda’s opposition. He contested four presidential elections, each time giving the ruling establishment a run for its money.His rallies were electrifying; his message resonated deeply with those who felt left behind by the system. He was, in many ways, the embodiment of defiance. “If you want peace,” he once said, “you must be ready to fight for justice.” And millions believed him.
But politics, like the seasons, changes. The winds that once blew in Besigye’s favor seem to have shifted. Some of his supporters argue that this shift is not organic but engineered. They insist that Besigye is being witch-hunted, that his imprisonment is politically motivated, and that President Museveni fears him. His wife, Winnie Byanyima, has repeatedly suggested that what exists between the two men is not just political rivalry.