{"id":2877,"date":"2026-01-04T14:13:05","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T14:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/2877\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T14:13:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T14:13:05","slug":"how-ugandas-police-became-musevenis-political-weapon-ahead-of-the-2026-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/2877\/","title":{"rendered":"How Uganda\u2019s police became Museveni\u2019s political weapon ahead of the 2026 elections"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jude Kagoro<\/a>, Universit\u00e4t Bremen<\/a><\/p>\n


\nUganda\u2019s police have long faced criticism for politically charged interventions. These include episodes in which lethal force has been used in ways that observers describe as excessive or indiscriminate<\/a>.<\/p>\n


\nThe main targets of restrictive or coercive tactics are supporters of the political opposition.<\/p>\n


\nFor example, in November 2020, weeks before the 2021 elections<\/a>, protests at the arrest of the main opposition candidate escalated into nationwide unrest. More than 100 people died<\/a>.<\/p>\n


\nUnder President Yoweri Museveni \u2013 in power since 1986 \u2013 the police have become a central pillar of the ruling party, the National Resistance Movement.<\/p>\n


\nIn the campaigns for the January 2026 general election, police are critical in containing demonstrations, mobilising political support and enforcing loyalty. They can be seen ferrying ruling-party supporters and guarding their processions.<\/p>\n


\nThey are also active against the opposition. Party activities of Museveni\u2019s main rival, Robert Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine, face routine obstruction, teargas and street confrontations.<\/p>\n


\nIn November and early December 2025, police violently dispersed or blocked Bobi Wine\u2019s caravans. The UN Human Rights chief condemned<\/a> this.<\/p>\n


\nI have published widely on themes of militarisation, security and policing, including the relationship between the Uganda police and the ruling party<\/a>.<\/p>\n


\nIt\u2019s my conclusion that the role of the police in Uganda cannot be meaningfully analysed through a Western-centric expectation of institutional neutrality.<\/p>\n


\nRather, policing has developed together with Uganda\u2019s broader political direction of personalised authority and an ideology of cadreship that continues to shape expectations within the ruling NRM party.<\/p>\n


\nThis has fostered, in my view, an ethos in which officers see themselves as active custodians of the existing political order.<\/p>\n


\nI\u2019ve concluded that they don\u2019t see themselves as being a neutral institution. They believe their job is to maintain the status quo.<\/p>\n


\nMy previous research<\/a> challenges the common assumption that the police act only on direct orders to protect the regime or target the opposition.<\/p>\n


\nIn reality, many officers believe that being visibly pro-ruling party defines them as \u201cgood officers\u201d.<\/p>\n


\nBased on my research, it\u2019s clear that elections due in 2026 are likely to repeat these old patterns.<\/p>\n


\nHistory of partisan policing<\/p>\n


\nMy extensive engagement with officers over more than 15 years, as both a researcher and a consultant, has given me a nuanced understanding of the attitudes and shared mentalities that shape policing culture.<\/p>\n


\nThese beliefs are reflected not only in what officers say but also in their everyday behaviour.<\/p>\n


\nFor example, several commanders prominently display ruling party symbols or images of the president as their WhatsApp profile photos \u2013 clear signs of how pro-NRM attitudes influence officers\u2019 conduct and become woven into police identity.<\/p>\n


\nAs a result, officers often take actions that favour the incumbent even without being told to. They want to signal allegiance and do what they think is expected of them as police.<\/p>\n


\nThis behaviour is rooted in a long relationship between political power and control of the security forces.<\/p>\n


\nSociety expects the police to serve ruling elites rather than operate as an impartial institution. Consequently, the force today functions less as a neutral body and more as an extension of the ruling party.<\/p>\n


\nPolice in formation<\/p>\n


\nUganda\u2019s police force played an active role in political policing and in supporting Britain\u2019s colonial administration when it was established in 1906.<\/p>\n


\nIt continued to play the same role under the post-independence governments of Milton Obote, Idi Amin, the Tito Okello junta, Obote II, and now under the National Resistance Movement since 1986.<\/p>\n


\nThere have been changes in nuance and emphasis. For example, the force was initially sidelined in favour of military and intelligence agencies in the early years of Museveni\u2019s reign.<\/p>\n


\nThe turning point came in the early 2000s, with the appointment of senior military officers as police chiefs. This signalled a strategic fusion of military command culture with domestic policing.<\/p>\n


\nUnder General Kale Kayihura, appointed in 2005, the police expanded rapidly in size, budget and operational authority.<\/p>\n


\nHe aligned the force with the ruling party by reshaping recruitment, sidelining older officers and elevating young and highly educated cadres loyal to the party.<\/p>\n


\nBy the mid-2010s, the police were firmly embedded within the political machinery and sustaining Museveni\u2019s rule.<\/p>\n


\nGoing beyond the use of force and coercion is also credited to Kayihura\u2019s legacy. Under the guise of community policing, he drafted millions of largely unemployed youth into a nationwide network of so-called crime preventers<\/a>.<\/p>\n


\nTheir presence at 2016 election rallies, in villages and on urban streets, was decisive in boosting National Resistance Movement turnout.<\/p>\n


\nTheir presence also undercut opposition mobilisations.<\/p>\n


\nBy 2021, however, Kayihura\u2019s apparatus had largely collapsed. Without his centralised coordination \u2013 and confronted by the rapid rise of Bobi Wine\u2019s youth-driven movement \u2013 the state increasingly relied on coercion alone. The result was violent campaign scenes in the 2021 elections.<\/p>\n


\nHeading into the 2026 elections, the National Resistance Movement appears to have rebuilt its soft-power apparatus to go with strong-arm tactics.<\/p>\n


\nThe police\u2019s head of the Crime Intelligence department, Christopher Ddamulira, is now central to youth mobilisation. He is using outreach programmes and targeted incentives reminiscent of Kayihura\u2019s tactics.<\/p>\n


\nThey include the temporary integration of ghetto youth into the police intelligence networks and funding small-scale business ventures. While these have been effective in diluting opposition support, it is the open use of force that dominates public debate.<\/p>\n


\nEquipped with armoured carriers, high-capacity tear-gas launchers, water cannons and fast-response vehicles, security forces use their mobility and intelligence networks to disrupt opposition mobilisation.<\/p>\n


\nIt\u2019s part of the police strategy to restrict the mobility of opposition candidates. The candidates are especially restricted from densely populated urban areas where they could draw large crowds.<\/p>\n


\nOpposition candidates are often pushed onto back roads or sparsely populated routes. There, they are less visible and less able to engage voters.<\/p>\n


\nPolice are also frequently deployed to bar candidates from being hosted by radio stations.<\/p>\n


\nThese police operations are reinforced by the Resident District Commissioners representing the presidency and backed by the military, which intervenes whenever political stakes rise. Together, they form a tightly coordinated apparatus of political control nationwide.<\/p>\n


\nThe constitution of Uganda<\/a> establishes the police force under Article 211, requiring it to be national, patriotic, professional, disciplined, and composed of citizens of good character \u2013 standards that are incompatible with partisanship or the oppression of political opponents.<\/p>\n


\nUnder Article 212, the police are mandated to protect life and property, preserve law and order, prevent and detect crime, and work cooperatively with civilian authorities, other security organs, and the public.<\/p>\n


\nA familiar contradiction<\/p>\n


\nUganda\u2019s 2026 elections will not simply test the popularity of competing political actors. They will again expose the fusion of policing and politics that has shaped the country for more than a century.<\/p>\n


\nPolice have consistently served as instruments of political order rather than neutral guardians of public security.<\/p>\n


\nToday\u2019s officers operate within this inherited logic, in a political culture that has never experienced a peaceful transfer of power.<\/p>\n


\nThe campaign trail reveals a familiar contradiction: a security force constitutionally mandated to protect all citizens, yet increasingly functioning as a political arbiter \u2013 shaping who is heard in the public sphere.<\/p>\n


\n***<\/p>\n


\nJude Kagoro<\/a>, Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for Intercultural and International Studies, Universit\u00e4t Bremen<\/a><\/p>\n


\nThis article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jude Kagoro, Universit\u00e4t Bremen Uganda\u2019s police have long faced criticism for politically charged interventions. These include episodes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[2563,2566,84,2562,787,1840,2567,2064,153,2565,2568,2564],"class_list":{"0":"post-2877","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uganda","8":"tag-bobi-wine","9":"tag-elections-2026","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-how-ugandas-police-became-musevenis-political-weapon-ahead-of-the-2026-elections","12":"tag-human-rights","13":"tag-national-resistance-movement","14":"tag-political-policing","15":"tag-security-forces","16":"tag-uganda","17":"tag-uganda-police","18":"tag-youth-mobilisation","19":"tag-yoweri-museveni"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}